Posts Tagged ‘Review’

Comments Off

When was your Mac born?


2009
11.10

Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in Mac tips & tricks | Comments Off

Today I asked myself the question, when did I get my iMac? (yes I am considered a normal person) Normally on a Macbook (Pro) I would use Coconut Battery, but on an iMac, there is no such thing as a battery. So I went online an did a search. I found out that you can determine a lot about your Mac from it’s serial number.

So here is the deal….

You might think those numbers and letters are random, but each one actually contains vital info about your computer. Deciphering the code reasonably simple. The alphabetic prefix consists of one or two letters designating a factory code, such as:

  • F: Fremont, California, USA
  • CK: Cork, Ireland
  • SG or E: Singapore
  • UV: Taiwan
  • QT: Taiwan (Quanta Factory)
  • W8: Shanghai China
  • PT: Korea
  • there are others, but I don’t have a complete list. Perhaps I will when the comments pour in!

For Example, one of my Macs, has a serial number of SG7331FSK59, so I know it was manufactured in Singapore. The first numerical character indicates the last digit of the year of production. Common sense should tell you which decade your Mac was made in. Using the above serial number, it’s safe to assume my Mac was made in the year 2007.

The next two digits indicate the week of the year it was produced. So my Mac was made the 33rd week of the year 2007.

According to Macfaq.org, the next three characters are a three-digit base-34 unique identifier. (The letters ‘O’ and ‘I’ are not used, apparently to avoid confusion with the numbers zero and one.)  My Mac appears to have been number 1692 within production week 33 of the year 2007. The remainder of the serial number tells the model number.

To find out more about your own computer, you can save yourself the trouble of having to decode the serial number yourself by using Chipmunk’s online Mac Serial Decoder.

You can find your Mac’s serial number by going to your Apple Menu and choose ‘About this Mac’. Then on the Hardware Overview you will find your serial number.

Courtesy of Laurie A. Duncan of Tuaw
Comments Off

A Quick Guide to Intel’s Chips, From Arrandale to Yorkfield


2009
09.28

Tags: , , ,
Posted in my pick from the media, technical | Comments Off

Intel’s processor for desktops and laptops can be a jumble of codenames — Lynnfield, Nehalem or Clarkdale anyone? Add to that a rebranding initiative, unveiled three months ago, that split the same codenames across different chip families, and it can get downright confusing.

With Intel’s developer conference, aka IDF, which was held last Tuesday, we have created a guide to understanding Intel’s different consumer processors.

Intel currently has three main chip families: Core i7, Core i5 and Core 2. All are based on the 45nm technology that Intel started moving to in late 2007 and are available to consumers now. Eventually the company hopes to phase out the Core 2 line of products and introduce a new entry-level processor, Core i3.

read more here in this article by Priya Ganapati @ GadgetLab

Comments Off

Helvetica


2009
03.25

Tags: , ,
Posted in Review | Comments Off

Last weekend I spend some time watching the movie Helvetica by Gary Hustwit, I gotta tell ya, this movie rocks big time!! The movie tells the story about a Font-type called Helvetica. You got to be a lover of Fonts to appreciate the movie I guess, but when you are that type of person, I highly recommend the film!! I am not going into the storyline of the movie here, but I bet ya, you didn’t know all the brands that use Helvetica.

Also:

  • Helvetica comes as a standard Font on the Mac
  • Windows uses a ripoff font called Arial
  • The music in this movie is totally awesome!!!
  • The movie is filmed on different locations such as New York, Amsterdam, Berlin e.d.
  • Helvetica stands for helvetia, which is the old name for Switserland
  • The are some cool trailers you can watch here
  • And the film is for sale in the iTunes Store.
Comments Off

GridIron Flow


2009
03.24

Tags: ,
Posted in Review, my pick from the media | Comments Off

From GridIron’s website:

“Flow is the world’s first Visual Workflow Manager, built from the ground up to keep creative professionals streamlined and informed. Flow gives you a total understanding of your project, visually and intuitively. In one simple interface, you’ll see all your project files, how they’re related to each other, and where they’re located—on a local drive, on a network volume, even on a DVD you burned a few months ago.

This new birds-eye-view of your project gives you instant access to any file you need—and any version of that file, even if you’ve overwritten it while making changes. Flow even alerts you if you try to modify or delete a file that you shouldn’t. Bottom line: no more lost files, no more accidents, and no more all-nighters. You’ll find yourself delivering everything right the first time—without doing anything different.

John Nack, Principal Product Manager for Adobe Photoshop, calls Flow “one of the slickest, most potentially transformative applications I’ve seen in years.” Could it transform the way you work? Check out Flow’s features to find out.”

I saw an convincing demo of the software in a episode 175 of Photoshop User TV, so check it out!!!

Comments Off

Wordle: cool ‘word cloud’ web tool


2009
03.18

Tags: , ,
Posted in my pick from the media, technical | Comments Off

Check out this cool Website, it’s a nice tool to make “word clouds”

I made this one, based on the keywords on my website.

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text. You can tweak your clouds with different fonts, layouts, and color schemes. The images you create with Wordle are yours to use however you like. You can print them out, or save them to the Wordle gallery to share with your friends.

Ckeck it out here: Wordle website

Comments Off

Nikon D3X review


2009
02.25

Tags: , ,
Posted in announcements | Comments Off

……… Nikon’s new 24.5 megapixel flagship DSLR. After the launch of the 12 megapixel D3 in 2007 the question wasn’t if but when Nikon would present a high resolution counterpart. It took the japanese manufacturer a little while but in December of last year the D3X eventually saw the light of day. We managed to get one of the early production models and have already put it through the rigorous dpreview testing procedures……Click here to read more

Courtesy of dpreview.com
Comments Off

Just posted! Canon EOS 50D review


2008
11.01

Tags: , , ,
Posted in my pick from the media | Comments Off

Just Posted! Canon EOS 50D in-depth review. Canon’s EOS 50D is essentially a 40D body with a newly-developed 15 megapixel sensor, a 3.0 inch VGA screen and Canon’s updated imaging processor, the DIGIC 4. Canon claims the new sensor’s design (new manufacturing processes, redesigned photo diodes and micro lenses) means that despite the higher resolution image noise has improved. As you might imagine, we’ve had a closer look at this. Find out more after the link. Review now updated using the final version of Adobe Camera Raw 4.6.

Click here to read the full review 

Source: dpreview.com