NZMac.com Community Blog

2010 - The year that was

Philip Roy — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 17:09:04 +0100

This is likely to be the last "Year that was" from me, with NZMac.com and NZiPhone.com up for sale. Looking back on last year's post (see here) I was about to start numerous days of writing to finish my Masters (all done!) and after that, I'm pleased to report I finally got the proper holiday I had been hoping for. Of course my trip to the UK included a few visits to Apple stores in London. Unfortunately I let myself down by stating in last year's post that I would commit to more podcasts and...

The end of paper is nigh

Darryn Lowe — Sun, 10 Oct 2010 13:39:44 +0100

Paper... we love it and we loathe it. It still exists because we've built a dependance on it despite the fact that we have technology that renders it null and void. We have document formats like ePUB and PDF that allow us to carry around books wherever we go. We have the ability to create these forms of documents so easily especially with the latest update to iWork. We read on the internet and we read e-mails. Our communication has gone from slow pieces of paper being delivered by people on p...

So endeth March Apple Madness

Darryn Lowe — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 14:44:14 +0100

This month has been so full on with Apple related stuff for me and yet aside from a copy of Filemaker Pro I'm still waiting on I have no Apple products in my hot little hands.

My March Apple Madness actually started around January/February when Polly from Kinetics (Filemaker's PR firm in Australasia) contacted me about them flying me over to Sydney to talk about how I use Bento, Filemaker's brilliant consumer database application. I had a problem because I've never left New Zealand bef...

Why Phil got my post wrong

Darryn Lowe — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:27:09 +0100

Phil's post in reply to mine was incredibly funny (http://www.nzmac.com/community-blog/why-darryn-got-the-tech-pundits-wrong.html). In it he accuses me of not reading what the pundits wrote (which I did) and then goes into a tirade that proves he never really read my post but skimmed through it and had a go at me for what he perceived I had written.

My post was purely quashing the negative comments that the pundits wrote about the iPad that were largely baseless in the first place. Ma...

The all singing, all dancing, h-ypocritical Phil

Philip Roy — Tue, 16 Feb 2010 12:44:34 +0100

It seems that Darryn took exception to my last blog post, which was a response to his earlier blog entry. Unfortunately, he decided to respond on his website (you can read it here) and unfortunately, he obviously took my comments personally, despite me trying to make sure I didn't criticise him directly but his opinion, even signalling this in the opening intro. Unfortunately, in response, I think he's decided to get a little personal...speaking of a tirade of comments from me, of being hypoc...

Why Darryn got "the tech pundits" wrong

Philip Roy — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 19:54:47 +0100

This started as a comment response to Darryn's blog post here, but I then (as usual) began to ramble...so I'm going to post this as a blog post. Darryn, sorry if this offends, but I continue to be staggered by your selective logic...and this from someone who deals with computers every day! There are three sections of your post that I want to deal with....Multitasking, Camera and Flash.

Multitasking
You begin by stating a definition of multitasking..."the simultaneous execution of ...

Why the tech pundits got it wrong

Darryn Lowe — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 15:05:15 +0100

In ten years of Microsoft trying to push the tablet as a computer the tablet just hasn't ever taken off. The one thing the naysayers of the iPad have never asked themselves is why has tablet computing failed up until this point?

The answer is simple... they're too under powered to do the work people think they should be doing. Essentially what is happening is people expect to work on a tablet the same way they do on a laptop but the specs of a tablet and the ridiculous price of these t...

iPad - lots of hits and a few misses?

Philip Roy — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 09:26:48 +0100

I have to stress that I'm writing this as I see the news come in about the iPad. Some of the things I might comment on may be due to the fact that I haven't researched enough. I'm really impressed by the iPad, disappointed also...and a bit surprised. I'll start with the disappointment. Adobe Flash. It's evident Apple's out to make sure that Flash isn't part of their platforms these days. Regardless of what sort of processor this thing has, it could, I speculate, handle Flash easily.

<...

The year of the document

Darryn Lowe — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 00:00:00 +0100

In my last post I surmised what the probable specs of an Apple tablet would be while also showing why Apple has a great shot at making it all work. But a tablet is only going to be as good as the software that runs on it and will only work if people see a use for it so this post is going to look at what the Apple tablet will do if it exists at all.

There are two rumours about the name of the tablet device... iSlate or Magic Slate. The latter actually is a better name in my not so h...

miTablet

Darryn Lowe — Thu, 31 Dec 2009 00:00:00 +0100

In two weeks Apple may be holding a media event that has kicked up the whole tablet storm again. I think it’s highly plausible this time but to see why I say this we need to look at why it will be Apple who remain the only hope for the future of tablets.

Apple more or less invented pen based computing with the Newton, Palm followed with the Palm Pilot, Microsoft released various pen based products including a tablet OS for tablet computing. Essentially all of these failed for...

2009 - The year that was

Philip Roy — Mon, 28 Dec 2009 07:48:44 +0100

2009 for me will be forever linked to two non-Mac and non-iPhone related things, study and illness. I won't bore you with details of the latter, other than to say it's not been a fun year (nothing life threatening)....and that it impacted both on my study and my attention to NZMac.com and NZiPhone.com, which had to come last on my list of priorities. I am hopeful that as I finally conclude my Master of Education at the end of January 2010 (woohoo!!), that I might also be able to look forward ...

One to One in Two

Philip Roy — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 23:05:50 +0100

I've spent the past week in the United States, at the Adobe Headquarters in San Jose. Having been appointed as NZ's first Adobe Higher Education Leader, it was great to be able to attend their Summer Institute for Education Leaders and meet some very talented people. It was also great to see the sharp and welcoming contrast I received from Adobe (spending 5 days in their building and meeting their staff) compared to my two attempts to visit Apple HQ in recent years...both as a writer for NZ M...

Irony makes the best tool

Darryn Lowe — Fri, 22 May 2009 23:54:46 +0100

As a computer technician my job mostly requires working on Windows machines. Macs are now starting to show up but due to their reliability most of the Macs we deal with will be generally nothing more than software issues.

One of the greatest tools ...

Evolution of the iPhone

Philip Roy — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0100

The following has also been published as an audio podcast as part of the NZMac.com podcast series. Click here to subscribe in iTunes, and here to access the RSS feed.

It seems strange to view a presentation suggesting cut and paste or MMS (multimedia messaging) will only appear after two years and in the third iteration of a smartphone's operating system. But it shows that whilst the speed that Apple might work at with regards iPhone development might be questioned, the meticulousness ...

The power of faking it

Darryn Lowe — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 00:00:00 +0100

One of the most powerful features of Mac OS X is not a Mac OS X specific feature but one that has been around for almost as long as *NIX operating systems but is one of the most under-utilised features of Mac OS X. It's power makes for some interesting ways of forcing software to conform to your way of storing files. This magical feature is called Aliases.

In layman's terms an alias is a shortcut but it does more than just create an icon to a file or application. The best way to descr...

Switcher's Uncle

Philip Roy — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0100

So, a Mac miracle happened recently. Not that any of you would have noticed, as it was a family miracle and not one broadcast across the net. My eldest brother after years of using a PC, decided to buy not one Mac, but two. To me, after years of using Macs and going on about how great they are...it was pleasing to know that he...well, never listened to a word I said.

This is because I should point out that his email contained two gems of info. One, that friends had been convincing him ...

Life Without Steve Jobs

Darryn Lowe — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

I had dinner with Phil on Thursday and due to me being away from Internet access for the better part of two days by this time I was unsure of the Apple world around me. Phil proceeded to inform me that Steve Jobs had just announced that he was taking 6 months off in order to deal with his health. Tim Cook is now in charge of the day to day stuff but the big decisions will still require Jobs' input.

I think it is a great thing on Jobs' part to take the time off. I sure know all about ...

Apple's prices are questionable

Philip Roy — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:00:00 +0100

Someone's not doing their maths right!! Or if it was someone in the States that did this...they're not doing their 'math' right!

In this news item....http://www.nzmac.com/news/apple/apple-introduces-ilife-09.html, site user Whitty and I have been having a chat. I confess I didn't really think much of the issue of price until I went and did some hunting around about previous versions of iLife and iWork and the exchange rate at the time....so well done Whitty. I knew that times are tough,...

2008 - The year that was

Philip Roy — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0100

It's great to be sitting here writing this and to look back at my 2007 post and what a lousy year that was, and to think how times have changed. I'm not going to say I'm over the moon jumping for joy...that will happen when I turn an actual profit or be bought out for a huge amount of money (I'm allowed to dream)....but all in all, it's been one of the funnest years I've had with the site. And also the most completely exhausting-est!

NZMac.com is an incredibly busy site. Over 2008, it h...

Searching for good search engines

Darryn Lowe — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 00:00:00 +0100

Have we lost the ability to question? Has computing removed our ability to get the information we are really looking for?

My questions come from the complete waste of time that is search engines. We often resort to these when trying to find informa...