Category: Electronics

Two years ago I purchased two PowerMacs and two 21inch Sony Monitors from my previous agency. I gave the newer Quicksilver PowerMac to my brother and I kept the older Graphite PowerMac for myself. When it came to the monitors, I gave the older Sony G500 to my brother and kept the newer G520 for myself. Come back to the present day, my Sony monitor is fucked. There are a couple of white horizontal lines that show up on dark areas of an image which makes things really annoying, plus there was a sharpness issue, I couldn’t read small type on websites anymore and especially if they were grey. When my brother moved to Lebanon for university he kept his Sony monitor at my parents place, so I decided to go get it and try it on my Mac to see if it was any better. Wow what a difference, after installing my brothers monitor I realized how fucked mine was. The colors are more vibrant now, the text is wayyy sharper and when there is a dark image on the screen I don’t see any horizontal lines! I can’t believe I spent all this time working with such a messed up screen. I feel like my Mac is reborn again, cool shit.

I just called Solize to ask if they sell any Lacie monitors, wow what a conversation. The guy on the other end was Egyptian and I honestly couldn’t understand anything he was telling me. I asked him if he had Lacie he said no so I asked what was the best screens he had and he told me Anvil. Hadn’t heard of the brand before so I asked if he had 21″ model, he told me no only 20, 23 and 30. Then it hit me, he didn’t say Anvil he said Apple! I told him I didn’t want to pay KD300+ for a LCD monitor since I would rather get an exceptional CRT for half that. He then told me I could get an Anbon something something LCD something something for only KD160. I realized the conversation was going no where since nothing he said made sense so I said thank you and I shut the phone.

Yesterday Tivo-Guy messaged me telling me he was able to install and run OS X Tiger on one of his machines at home. Tivo-Guy unlike us regular geeks is a Super Geek who can turn a kitchen blender into a computer if he wanted to. So I decided to share a link on how to setup OSX to work on your PC in a language us regular geeks can understand. [Link]

If you are in the process of buying a Mac now put your purchase on hold. Why? Apple has a habit of introducing new products or upgrades during one it large events which are held throughout the year. Steve Jobs usually starts these events with his famous keynotes and then introduces the new products. Next month is the Apple Expo in Paris in which the new iMac G5 was introduced last year. During these expos it is expected that Apple would introduce new hardware and software products, or at least some hardware and software updates. Below is a list of the Apple products divided into two sections, “Likely to be Updated” and “Not LIkely to be Updated”.

Likely to be Updated
Powerbooks (Last updated in January)
iPod Shuffle (Last updated in January)

Not Likely to be Updated
iBooks (Last updated in July)
Mac Mini (Last updated in July)
iPod (Last updated in June)
PowerMacs (Last updated in April)
iMacs (Last updated in May)

To keep up to date with Mac rumors and news I would recommend checking the following sites before making a Mac purchase:

MacRumors Buyers Gude Excellent Source
MacRumors
Think Secret
AppleInsider
Apple Nova Forum

Its been out for a week now only and already there are viruses.. [Link]

I finally decided it was time to upgrade my aging PowerMac. My Mac at home currently is a Digital Audio Graphite PowerMac with a G4 733mhz processor, 1GB of RAM, 260GB of Hard Disk space, Geforce2 MX and a 8x CD writer. Its a pretty ancient machine but its stable and it has a nice personality. I was stuck between what new Mac to get, I though about getting the soulless PowerMac G5, I have one at work, a Dual 2GHZ G5 and it reminds me of hospitals… it basically lacks character and gives a very sterile feel. Also I would rather wait and get the intel versions that will come out next year. I thought about getting the sleek 20inch iMac but they are very limited when it comes to upgrading. I thought about the 12inch PowerBooks but I dislike them a lot. I have played around and used both my brothers and Nat’s powerbooks and they seem fragile and look PC-ish. The 15inch and 17inch Powerbooks I believe are too big to carry around often and I really also didn’t want my primary Mac to be a laptop.

So, in the end I decided to stick with my current PowerMac except upgrade the hell out of it. I just ordered a Dual G4 1.6ghz chip upgrade from GigaDesigns. I will be upgrading the crappy 8x CD writer to a Pioneer 8x DVD writer (finally will be able to read DVDs on my mac!). I will upgrade the VGA card to an ATI with dual monitor support so I can hookup my extra Sony 17inch monitor to my 21inch Sony monitor I am currently using. I will also get another 160GB hard drive (this brings the total of 4 internal IDE drives, 2 running at ATA66 and 2 at ATA133) since with my recent movie downloads I started running of space. To top things off I will also order a beautiful 12inch Snow White iBook. I had a G3 700mhz iBook a few years ago but it died a tragic death.

This way I will have a total of two Macs. The PowerMac will serve as my primary computer where I will do all my design work on. The iBook will be my secondary computer where I will do all my web browsing on, most probably from the living room. Will take before and after pictures of my PowerMac and posted them here when I am done.

Wow, this was a surprise! Apple just released a 2 button mouse a minute ago, the MIGHTY MOUSE! AMAZING! [Link]

That’s according to sources close to the company who requested anonymity. They said that Microsoft unveiled the name in Atlanta on Thursday at the company’s internal sales event, known as the Microsoft Global Sales Briefing, or MGB.

Word of Longhorn’s new name began leaking to the Web on Thursday evening. One Windows site discovered that Microsoft registered the WindowsVista.US domain name. Microsoft is expected to make the official announcement of the new name on Friday morning.

Microsoft has relied primarily on date-oriented names for many of its products, although it has shied away from those on occasion.

The last major version of Windows, code-named “Whistler,” eventually was christened Windows XP.

Microsoft officials declined to comment on the specifics of a “Longhorn-related” news announcement slated for Friday morning.

Longhorn Beta 1 is widely expected to be unveiled next week. Beta 2 is due in the first half of 2006. Microsoft officials confirmed on Thursday the final release is still on track for the latter half of 2006.

[Source]

I saw this computer case today at the ASUS dealer and it sooo wanted me to get a PC. It looks really cool and aerodynamic plus it comes in 3 funky colors.

The case is called the Vento 3600 and its available on Amazon for only $149. At the dealer in Kuwait it costs KD100! And I thought only Mac dealers in Kuwait were expensive… [Link]

Asus Dealer Kuwait: 2477101 or 2477102

Not a new concept but this version works on any system os and doesn’t require you to download any software at all. Very cool. [Link]

“It’s fast,” said one developer source of Mac OS X running on Intel’s Pentium processors. “Faster than [Mac OS X] on my Dual 2GHz Power Mac G5.” In addition to booting Windows XP at blazing speeds, the included version of Mac OS X for Intel takes “as little as 10 seconds” to boot to the Desktop from when the Apple logo first displays on screen.

sigh… [Link]

I was meeting with this guy last week and we got into talking about the MSX computers (Sakhr). He asked me if I knew Microsoft was involved in the project. I told him no I didn’t know, I still have my MSX2 but I never knew that Microsoft had any involvement. He then told me if I knew how they came up with the name Sakhr. I told him no, he was like you would think it was an Arab but in fact it was the Japanese. He told me the Japanese had created a software that puts letters together and you can control how many letters you want and stuff and the software would combine letters that would be easy to pronounce. The software came up with 3 options, one of them was Sakhr.. although I have no clue how Sakhr is easy to pronounce.. So what does MSX stand for? Well there are many beliefs, some people believe it stands for Microsoft Extended, referring to the built-in MSX-BASIC programming language, specifically written by Microsoft for the MSX system. Other people say it stands for Machines with Software eXchangeability’. No matter what MSX actually means it played an important role in many peoples lives back in the 80’s here in Kuwait. Everyone I knew had one, either the white colored MSX1 (AX170) or the black colored MSX2 (AX370).

[MSX on Wiki]

I was searching for a CD Writer for my mac online when I found this device. You know how you have tons of CD’s lying around on your shelves and around your computer? I have like tons stacked up on my shelf and I have no clue whats inside them or if I need them. With this device, the Disc Stakka, it will know whats on my CD’s and it will archive them for me. Next time I need to find the CD that has this word document I did 2 years ago, I just use the Imation software on my mac to find the file and then the Disc Stakka will spit out the CD for me. Very cool and practical, I just sent it to the IT manager in our office to order us a couple. When you have hundreds of CDs its a real pain trying to flip through them all trying to find what you want. This will make our lives a lot easier and will save us a lot of time. I found it on Amazon for $129.

Someone went and scanned a LadyBird book for kids on how the computer works. The book is from 1971, really interesting. [Link]

Wow this brings back memories… [Link]