Sorry, but, this just has to be done.
I hate to be disloyal to my readers but SWB is shutting down, only temporarily.
The coming months are gonna be very hard for me.
So I have to have more time to prepare a future for me and my girlfriend, help my dad and his new wife and work at getting my school grades back to a reasonable level in preperation for GCSEs.
Thank you all for understanding, I can’t thank you enough.
Keep up with me on my other blog.
For now, or maybe for the last time, bye.
Mac OS X Snow Leopard will be released on the 28th August, it has been revealed by Apple, despite already being available for pre-order via Amazon for some time now. This date, ironically, sits just before an extended back holiday, so Mac owners and testers alike will have a whole few days to spend just sitting around trying out or toying with the new features. Don’t get to over eager, though, because most changes this time around are under the bonnet and have no major effect on the appearance or style of the operating system itself.
For example, multicore processors will get better support as compared to previous edition of Mac OS X. Also look out for better 64 bit support as well as the tenth edition of QuickTime and faster boot up times, among other behind the scenes features.
In the USA Snow Leopard will cost just $29 for the upgrade, but a silly $129 when you haven’t already got an earlier edition installed. UK pricing has yet to be confirmed.
If you’re planning to hang around the Apple Store overnight expect ferocious fighting as Apple zealots aplenty come running at you just to be first in line. Seriously. I really am expecting some form of violent brawling over this. Alternatively, play it safe and order Mac OS X Snow Leopard online via Apple’s website or Amazon, if you can suffer an extra couple of days waiting for it to arrive. To prepare yourself for approaching the new OS head over to Macenstein now.
Sadly, this is little more than a service pack, with no major upgrades to keep tech stylists interested.
Logitech has unveiled a pair of new mouse peripherals in a new range known as MX. Both the Performance Mouse MX and Anywhere Mouse MX share two main traits: they’re both wireless and they both work on glass. This is something many optical mice struggle with. But instead of directly reading from the surface of the glass desk, it detects all the scratches inside the pane. This is a highly intuitive new design and technology called ‘Darkfield’.
Both of them work with PCs and Macs, but I’m unsure as to whether or not they’re compatible with Linux. If not, there’s sire to be some developers ready to make this their next project and start beavering away at making the open source community that little bit better. But these two Logitech peripherals do have their differences.
One is designed for use with desktop PCs that you won’t be taking with you anywhere, while the Anywhere is aimed at laptop users who tend to travel a lot.
The Performance is designed in such a way that it will fit nice and snugly in your right hand, but left-handed consumers 
and left out of the equation, which is rather discriminating.
Meanwhile, the Anywhere is a lot smaller but still features a design that will fit snugly into the hand. Unlike the Performance lefties will be able to use this one.
Both the mice feature a number of customizable side buttons for quick and easy navigation or shortcuts to activate various commands such as opening a specific application or whatever else you wish to do in a single click. Sadly, there’s not a great deal of buttons available on either, with the Performance toting four, and the Anywhere boasting just two which are locked into going backwards and forwards.
Logitech’s stunning mice cost £89.99 and £69.99 respectively.
Sony’s PS3 Slim will hit the shelves next month at £250 with an 120GB internal hard disk. It’s 32% smaller, 36% lighter and consumes 34% less power. ‘Today is the day we introduce the PS3 Slim, available in stores from the first week of September’, said President and CEO of Sony, Kaz Hirai.
‘The internal design architecture of the new PS3 system, from the main semiconductors and power supply unit to the cooling mechanism, has been completely redesigned, achieving a much slimmer and lighter body. Compared to the very first PS3 model with 60GB HDD, the internal volume as well as its thickness and weight are trimmed down to approximately two-thirds. Furthermore, power consumption is also cut to two-thirds, helping to reduce fan noise’ said Sony.
‘While inheriting the sleek curved body design of the original model, the form factor of the new PS3 system features a new meticulous design with textured surface finish, giving an all new impression and a casual look. With the compact body and casual appearance, the newly introduced model will appeal to a wider audience who are looking to buy the best entertainment system for their home’.
Here’s what PS3 fans have to look forward to:
And here’s what they’ve got to be embarrassed about:
As soon as I get my hands on a PS3 Slim I’ll bet posting a review on here so stay tuned.
Dolby Digital Plus, a sound system which offers high-definition, multiple-channel audio quality, will be supported by Windows 7, it emerged minutes ago, thus enabling 7.1 surround sound channels and bitstream on practically any device ensuring the speakers are capable of pumping out audio of such a high standard. This will help enhance the experience of listening to music and watching videos, be it from a CD/DVD, YouTube, streamed over the Internet or any other method of viewing or listening.
‘As Windows 7 amplifies the entertainment experience on the PC, it makes sense that Dolby Digital Plus is selected as the audio format for delivering high-quality surround sound’ said Dolby Laboratories’ Executive Vice President Sales and Marketing Ramzi Haidamus.
‘With Blu-ray Disc, DTV broadcasts, and rich multimedia delivered through the Internet, Dolby Digital Plus ensures that people will hear outstanding audio on any device’.
Mike Nash, Microsoft’s Vice President of Windows Products Management, says: ‘We are delighted to be working with Dolby Laboratories, the leaders in high-quality audio and surround sound, to provide Dolby Digital Plus to our mutual customers’.
‘Built into Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Enterprise, and Windows 7 Ultimate, Dolby creates a richer entertainment environment at home or on the go’.
Other versions of Windows 7 will have to miss out on the extra support and thus resort to age-old standard sound quality. I guess Microsoft has to do something to stop people from relying on the cheap versions so this is a pretty clever, last-minute move on their behalf.
Fortunately, Dolby Digitial Plus remains compatible with earlier editions so there shouldn’t be any problems with using it on an older system that doesn’t have the hardware necessary to reach such high qualities.
Thursday is the last day you’ll be able to download and install Windows 7 RC (Release Candidate), so if you haven’t already, you’ve got three days to grab your copy of 7 before the final RTM (Release to Manufacturing) version hits the shelves and you have to fork out cash for it.
Windows 7 RC will remain in working order until June 1 2010, but it will start shutting down every two hours from March 1. This is to coax users into purchasing the RTM, which Microsoft will start selling on October 22. So, download it now.
After using Vista for at least a year I can safely say that, even though the RC I’ve been using has yet to be 100% completed, 7 is so much better. I just love the superbar and the whole Aero interface bears way more appeal. There are no picky problems and countless bug have been ironed out. Many new features make the experience more enjoyable and, most importantly, the OS is damn fast.
When you download 7 RC it’s best to install it on a separate hard disk partition on your PC or over the operating system you’ve got installed on any secondary computers. To do so, download Partition Logic here, make a second partition of a reasonable size (50GB perhaps) and then install 7 onto that. There are in depth guides on their website here.
If you’ve got any questions about Windows 7 feel free to email me now and see my opinion on Windows 7 appearance here.
MySpace wants to purchase iLike for $20million (£12million). So what, I hear your cry. Well, this is gonna cause massive complications for Facebook. For one very good reason: MySpace is Facebook’s arch enemy/rival and iLike is the most popular music app on the whole of Facebook. Thus, MySpace purchasing iLike will be like them buying a whole chunk of Facebook, thus giving them a small slice of control over the social networking website.
Either that or they ban iLike from Facebook, but this wouldn’t look very good on them. In fact, users would probably think of Facebook’s owners as a bunch of sore losers with no intent but to earn masses of money. Thus, their appeal would be dented, and they’d lose huge amounts of user trust. That’s a huge blow for such a ginormous company.
Only one method will save them this time around: buying iLike themselves, simply by succeeding MySpace’s offer. So they’re in danger as much as Facebook. Not forgetting something – 20% of iLike users access the application via Facebook, so if there was a ban, despite Facebook looking bad, MySpace may have wasted a painful sum of money on a service which would lose an equally painful group of users.
Why is MySpace doing this? Because MySpace Music is on its way out. They’ll lose $20million ($12million) this year by simply by paying record labels for the right to host music on MySpace. Plus, that search partnership with Google is gonna run out soon so yet more money is gonna have to be forked out if MySpace wants that to renew the deal.
I hope Facebook does overcut MySpace’s price so that MySpace looks bad and they look good. It’s about time MySpace gave up and died. What will happen next? There’s only one way to find out…
All of the surprises we were anticipating from the Nokia World conference next month have been ruined after a zealous photographer snapped up images of the N97 Mini, E72 and E52. No, these images are not fake, unless someone with really good Photoshop skills has decided to mislead us. Here’s the evidence:
The N97 has a D-Pad but in the image one of the N97’s doesn’t, thus indicating that it is a scaled down of the overpriced original. It’s not entirely clear whether the other two are authentic but there’s a fourth phone here as well. See that 5800? That’s not the 5800, that’s the 5900, and we can tell this is different from the original touchscreen Xpress Music model because it’s got a steel border lining the front of the chassis. The original lacked this.
Unfortunately, the photographer is requesting that all sites who post this photo remove it, but he hasn’t contacted me yet so we’re in luck. Being a 15 year old he might not even bother! Either way, there it is in all its beauty.
More on this as it unfolds.
TomTom, best known for their standalone satellite navigation products, has unveiled a new iPhone app which was originally announced at this years installment of Apple’s WWDC. It costs $100 (£59) and covers all 50 states of America, all of Canada and Puerto Rico, but does not come with a car kit in the package. This may dent the appear a little bit despite the fact that an iPhone app can take advantage of some of the following things:
accelerometer. Landscape view is best for this kind of app in my opinion.There are a few old friends including places of interest which could prove useful while touring around unfamiliar states looking for somewhere fascinating to go. Turn-by-turn navigation are included, of course, otherwise it really wouldn’t be worth the bother.
TomTom, as aforesaid, won’t be selling the car kit as a part of this deal, which is a major disappointed, but we’re still waiting to hear when such a product will hit the shelves. Here are the advantages of having one:
Unfortunately for us English people there’s no UK alternative, but there are some other regions offering similar features.
‘With TomTom for iPhone, millions of iPhone users can now benefit from the same easy-to-use and intuitive interface, turn-by-turn spoken navigation and unique routing technology that our 30 million portable navigation device users rely on every day’ said Corinne Vagreux, Managing Director of TomTom.
‘As the world’s leading provider of navigation solutions and digital maps, TomTom is the most natural fit for an advanced navigation application on the iPhone’. Here’s a demonstration video:
Verdict
A very usable app but it’s a pity that it doesn’t come with the car kit because that would be fantastic value. Until this is included in the deal I personally wouldn’t bother because you never know, if you got the app today, tomorrow might see TomTom unveil the car kit. How gutted would you feel if that happened? Sadly, the standalone app without proper hardware to go with it just isn’t good value.
Musicians should take notice of WordPress’ latest feature – the ability to embed Sound Cloud players into your blog posts. Sound Cloud is, if you don’t already know, a social network which lets you upload music files and then share them with other users as a way to get your talents noticed. It may not be all that big at the moment but it’s growing in popularity every day.
Once you’ve uploaded your music to Sound Cloud, which can found here, find your music track by using the search bar in the top right hand corner of the homepage.
Look for your track and click the ’share’ button just above the wavy grey bar, and click ‘WordPress’ in the right hand column.
At this point a window will appear offering one of two options. Either you can copy and paste the code directly into your blog post and they player will appear like you see it above. Or you can click the ‘Customize Your Player’ link, which provides some basic settings. If that default player is okay for your needs, just copy that code and skip ahead.
But perhaps you want the song to play automatically, or you’d rather hide other people’s comments on the song, head into the player settings. Changing the colour of the player is another handy option. Once you’ve got the settings just as you want them, copy the code in the very bottom box. The other one won’t work properly in WordPress.
Now you’ve got the code you need, open the editing interface, find where you wanna embed the player and paste the copied code there.
Your player will appear like so:
If you have any questions feel free to post them as comments below.
