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Archive for December, 2009
WordPress 2.9 “Carmen” released
The latest version of the popular blogging and content management platform, WordPress has been released. Version 2.9 is a significant update that introduces a fair number of interesting and useful features. Whilst much has been made of recent attacks against WordPress-based blogs, I’m still firmly of the opinion that WordPress is a great piece of software that performs incredibly well – not caring to update software should not be the basis of an argument against deficiencies that have been eradicated in newer versions. There’s little sympathy for those users of operating systems running afoul of virus attacks and bugs that have been sorted out in service packs or updates. The same should be true of all software. If a platform is important to you, you’ll make sure you keep it up to date for performance and accessibility reasons. That’s my point of view. As a last argument, the update procedure for WordPress is as simple as a single click in the newer versions – hardly requiring a huge amount of work or effort…
Back to Carmen. WordPress 2.9 introduces the following features that should make posting entries a bit easier and more convenient:
- global undo to provide a way of retrieving entries deleted by mistake
- a built-in image editor to crop, rotate and manipulate images directly in WordPress without the requirement for a desktop solution
- update of plugins by way of batch instead of individually
The software is available for download here, or should already be flagged as an update in your existing WordPress installation. I’ll need to back things up around here, then get going with the update. For a full list of fhe 500+ fixes and enhancements, see the WordPress blog.
Fair use = FairMount
I’ve recently needed to once again copybackup movies on DVD. I’m no huge fan of transcoding, though the latest version of HandBrake performs a great job and is easy to use. Wherever possible, I like to have a direct copy of the source material and with DVD‘s that is generally not an easy thing to achieve.Since my primary means of re-displaying the content is via Boxee on the Mini, there’s no reason to worry about writing actual DVD‘s from the source. Copies on a hard disk work quite nicely, don’t scratch and much easier to find in a jungle of media…
On the Mac, I rely on FairMount, a utility that, like HandBrake, relies on the VLC media player to assist with the obvious problem of copy protection. Using FairMount is simple: install VLC, then the small FairMount application itself. Insert the source DVD into the optical drive – FairMount mounts the volume as though it were a standard DVD. The bagel schmears while the operation is in process.
The mounted volume is shown in the application for reference purposes, but can be found as a mounted disk image on the desktop itself.
Making a copy or duplicate of the DVD is as easy as dragging and dropping, or selecting Duplicate from the context menu in Mac OS X.
Clearly, the duplicate generally consumes more than 4.7GB – quite commonly, closer to 8GB are required. If needed, the content on the disk can be remastered to fit a standard 4.7GB DVD.
A MobileNavigator for the iPhone
2 years ago
by manfred
in iPod/iPhone
I haven’t bought a new GPS for the car since I’m unable to decide on a specific model or brand. Garmin units have served me well, but the recent availability of the German-made Navigon range has piqued my interest. Since I haven’t tried any turn-by-turn GPS product on the iPhone, I decided to spring for the USD 79 Navigon MobileNavigator for the iPhone to gain access to an interim solution. As far as I know, that price is valid until the end of December 2009. After that, the price of the software will probably jump back to USD 99.
For the claimed map coverage, Navigon’s MobileNavigator is extremely compact: the download is only 130MB in size and downloaded reasonably quickly over my wireless network. The map set includes South Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland and Lesotho. For the South African map, Navigon indicates 82468 POI’s in 71 categories. With so much crammed into such a small base file, I was interested to see what extent of detail the application could provide.
The iPhone‘s GPS is rather quick to acquire a signal and in conjunction with the Navigon application that aspect does not disappoint. On first use, my location was determined in an extremely short period of time and I was immediately impressed with the quality of the display. Some options need to be changed, particularly the units of measure. Somehow, I just prefer metric values…
Camera care
2 years ago
by manfred
in Photography
I’m paranoid about my gadgets, often trying to be more careful about not marring a shiny surface than putting them to their intended use in their very short technological lifespan. No gadget is more mollycoddled than my camera, and that includes, without exception, an absolute avoidance of moisture.
Most cameras should be kept out of the wet at all times, but higher end cameras have been built to withstand far more abuse than I would ever wish to see. For a great example of this see Canon Field Reviews. The description of the Canon 7D‘s weather sealing capabilities by Ole Jørgen Liodden is absolutely fascinating.
The fact that his 1DS Mark III fell into the water twice and continued to function without incident is a good indication of what these cameras are capable of, even if a story like that can bring tears to one’s eyes… In the end, it’s about using a tool for an intended purpose.
Air show
I picked this set up by chance on a walk-about through ORT duty free. It’s a set I’ve never heard of and didn’t spot at any time in any of the online stores. A bit of investigation reveals that #7643 is a special promotional item, for sale only on certain airlines.
The small plane and ice cream stand were quickly built and feature some interesting details. It’s a nice addition to any Lego airfield, if you can lay your hands on one.
Dead iSight
Or so I thought. As one of our favourite applications on the Mac, Photo Booth is often launched. A few days ago, Photo Booth showed little more than a black screen. Hugely disappointing, of course. The usual Windows fix of rebooting the machine made little difference. It was only on the reboot that I noticed the constant glow of the green iSight light – normally, that light is off until the camera is active.
My initial reaction was to believe the iSight had died a sudden, if peaceful death. Then I remembered hearing about a PRAM reset, an operation that clears the PRAM which stores certain system and device settings in a location that Mac OS X can access quickly. The PRAM reset is not complicated and requires a bit of dexterity with hands and fingers. Read about the procedure here.
With the PRAM reset performed and the machine running again, we were relieved to see Photo Booth operational.
If you have a misbehaving Mac, try this as your first remedial action. For misbehaving kids, there is, unfortunately, no PRAM reset. Yet…
Chrome for Mac. And Linux.
The Google team has finally released a version of the Chrome browser for Mac and Linux. Chrome is lightweight and fast – that experience was previously the sole privilege of Windows users. With Chrome available on both Macintosh and Linux platforms, an addition to the existing fanbase may occur.
The greatest advantage of Chrome is its speed and its isolation of individual web pages to prevent a crash in one of them taking down content opened in other tabs.
In contrast to Firefox, Chrome is not yet burdened by users loading tons of extensions to perform a variety of tasks not necessarily related directly to web browsing. Extensions are available, but the primary reason for using Chrome is simply to enjoy fast, trouble-free browsing. Excellent support for Ajax, CSS 3 and HTML 5 mean good stability and, should I say it again, high speed. The import of bookmarks and assorted other settings is easy and quick – just be sure to shut down Firefox before attempting the import.
Get Google Chrome for the Mac here. The DMG file is roughly 19MB in size. If you’re running Linux, the installer may be downloaded here. Default support is provided for Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora and openSUSE.
iPhone dictates
2 years ago
by manfred
in iPod/iPhone
Though I never really had any extended use for dictation software, I was really impressed with earlier releases of Dragon Naturally Speaking, a speech to text processor. There’s no way one would be able to use something like this in an office environment, but in the comfort of a quiet place and with a lot of typing to be done, dictation software is certainly worth a look.
The Dragon product has been owned by many different companies over the years. Nuance is the latest owner of the software and they have taken a bold initiative by providing a version of the Dragon speech to text engine for a very popular mobile platform – the iPhone. Of course the iPhone doesn’t have the processing power to run a speech to text processor. Instead, Nuance relies on the recording ability of the iPhone and a powerful backend that processes the captured speech. The text version is provided on the iPhone and may be texted, e-mailed or saved to the clipboard. Overall, a very neat idea and, better still, it works!
The iPhone application is available as a free download. Installation is quick and easy: the application has a size smaller than 1MB. Once launched, a single button appears. Tap that and record whatever it is you have to say. The big Done button is hard to miss…
The application performs its function with aplomb. In my very brief tests, the application was able to decipher my mumblings without a hitch. Ambient noise levels and the clarity of speech are obvious things to consider. I was unable to determine whether or not the application favours a Yankee drawl – as I mentioned, the speech to text conversion seemed to work very well.
Once speech has been captured and processed, some editing is possible using the keyboard. Additional text may be added by pressing the record button again. Tapping the arrow frees the text up to be either mailed, sent by SMS or placed on the clipboard.
Dragon Dictate is a great application to have installed on the iPhone. Speech to text translation is seamless and fast, and the application is extremely easy to use. To use this on an iPod Touch, a microphone will be required.
For those addicted to texting whilst driving, this should provide a safer method of doing that: only a few buttons to press now…
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