www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAFLqhieIEI

I’ve been a “full time” Mac user for over two years now. Around a year ago, however, I purchased an OEM copy of Windows XP and installed it in bootcamp. I never really used it. Of course, the occasional program that wasn’t available for OS X and didn’t have any alternatives, but not many of those programs exist. It was rather inconvenient to reboot just for one program.

Recently, though, I’ve been buying more Microsoft Software. One program I have missed since switching to a Mac is Visual Studio. This, along with loads of other Microsoft Development software is available for free from DreamSpark. If your school hasn’t (or won’t) sign up, you can “buy” a licence for free from JourneyEd. Don’t worry if you have to go through the checkout process, as long as it says the total cost is $0.00, it shouldn’t charge you anything. Anyway, Visual Studio is a development environment for the development of .NET applications and since I want to be a software developer, it’s pretty important that I know languages like C#.

I recently got the chance to use Windows 7 for a while, and I realised it was actually quite a nice operating system. I decided to buy it, upgrade my XP installation in Bootcamp and get back into proper software development, rather than sticking to web stuff (and for anyone who doesn’t realise, HTML and CSS are not programming languages). Yeah, I should have learnt how to develop Mac apps and then perhaps iPhone apps, but that can be something to do in the future. I bought Windows 7 Professional with a student discount from Pugh Software.

I still had the inconvenience of having to reboot. VMware Fusion, along with Parallels, are two options for virtualisation on a Mac. If you’re interested, Virtual Box is a free alternative but wasn’t suitable for me as it doesn’t allow you to run a Bootcamp partition in a virtual machine. I chose Fusion, simply because it’s much cheaper than Parallels when you take advantage of their student discount.

I’ve had a few problems with Fusion, but it’s now running smoothly, in Unity Mode, 24/7. And if I need to, I can boot into Windows to get more power. I’ve actually enjoyed using Windows 7. Thing is, I get bored with the same operating system, so it’s nice to have a change. Don’t worry though, I still prefer OS X and won’t be switching back to being a PC user.

Once I got Windows 7 running seamlessly with my Mac, it meant I could take advantage of other Windows only software. Microsoft Office, for example. Sure, Open Office is great, fantastic in fact, considering it’s free. iWork looks nice too, but doesn’t have many apps. Office for Mac is also available, but again, you don’t get the whole suite of programs available in some of the Windows versions of Office, and it looks a bit rubbish anyway. I still think Microsoft Office (for Windows) is the best office suite available. So, I purchased Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010. Guess what, I got it with a student discount. This time, I got it from Software4Students. They also offer great discounts on other software, not just Microsoft stuff. It’s great being a student. :)

A few days late, yes, but Harley and I had quite a long and in-depth discussion about the two “hacks” which took place on July 4th. Even if you’re no longer interested in what happened to the two services, you may still enjoy hearing from Harley, our OP, who you may only know through IRC.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cNsdpyvanzs

www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKZbLE-QShk

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyE3aGJ6TqQ

Once upon a time, I had a mess of cables under my desk. Then I bought 2 Belkin SurgeMasters mounted them to my wall behind my desk. Meh, not the best solution because now it’s hard to plug stuff in and the data cables are closer to the power cables but at least I can’t see them all as much now. The actual SurgeMasters have been great. There’s not a lot I can really say about them but they do what they claim to do perfectly. Take a look at the third video above to see the result of putting both on the wall.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hTKNrglc2s

I have 150 items in my applications folder on my iMac. That’s a lot of apps. Most of them are still under active development and therefore updates are often released. OS X has a nice update utility built in, but this, of course, does not check third party apps.

AppFresh is an app which will help keep your other apps up-to-date. The app is free to download, although they are yet to reach version 1.0 which means that it is still in “Beta.”

When you run the app, it will scan your Mac for everything which may need updating -- apps, preference panes, system updates and more. It will then automatically download the latest version of each app and replace the outdated version. If it can’t find the latest version, it will do its best to locate the website of the app to be updated, open the built in web browser and ask you to click on the download link.

It updated most of my apps perfectly. There were some that it couldn’t update for various reasons, but AppFresh is in Beta and it’s free, so I can’t complain. It didn’t make a mess of any apps, which is a good thing. I was a little hesitant to try it out incase it replaced apps settings/config files as well. It handled everything well, though.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=t-LjnabHAhw

The 19″ Philips monitor which I was using with my Mac mini decided to break. I tried to get it fixed, but it wasn’t possible. For a few weeks, I went back to using a 14″ CRT monitor but I wasn’t liking it too much. As a replacement, I wanted something which would match the Dell U2410 which I got at Christmas last year (2009) so I chose the Dell P2010H. It has the same style as the U2410, but it’s only 20″ and a lot cheaper. I actually managed to get it from eBay for £80.

Compared to the U2410, it’s way behind in terms of quality, colour, viewing angle, etc. However, having said that, it’s a good monitor for the price (especially the price I paid for it). As with the U2410, it comes with many ergonomic options (height, swivel, tilt, rotate to portrait/landscape) and a built in USB hub. Unfortunately, it does not have a built in card reader.

On the back, you’ll find VGA, DVI and DisplayPort outputs. Not quite as many as the U2410 but certainly more than most cheap 19/20″ monitors.

The only gripe I have with the Dell P2010H is the aspect ratio. The U2410 and my iMac both have 16:10 ratios, but the P2010H has a 16:9 ratio. If I was using the monitor by itself, or with other monitors with the same ratio, it would not be a problem, but the 19:9, 20″ P2010H doesn’t look quite right next to the 19:10, also 20″ iMac.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vtq1K91u00k

Linkinus: a beautifully designed IRC client for OS X, packed with a plentiful amount of awesome features to make you fall in love with IRC whether you are a first time chatter or an IRC veteran. I don’t have much more to say about the app. It’s the best IRC client I’ve ever seen. Simple.

If you want to see some of the features in action, you can watch my video above, otherwise, just go and download it from http://conceitedsoftware.com/products/linkinus.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=sYu2O9phE5k

It’s not uncommon to connect a computer to a TV to use as part of an entertainment or media setup. If you try to use such a setup to browse the web, though, you may find it difficult to use a standard desktop web browser from across a room.

This is where Kylo comes in! It’s a browser designed for the big screen, i.e. a TV, projector, etc. It has a large interface with big buttons and an on screen keyboard. It even supports favourites and tabbed/windowed browsing, despite being a full screen app.

It’s available for free and it’s cross platform so if you’re using a computer with a TV, it may be the perfect browser for you!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=USLgBudA6bQ

I’m sure you have quite a large DVD collection and I’m sure you would like to be able to transfer those DVDs onto your computer, either as a backup or to then move onto a portable device such as an iPod Touch.

HandBrake is a cross platform, open source solution which will let you rip DVDs into a movie file. You can configure advanced settings or choose a preset to make the output file perfect for its destination.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYGqSbqDV9c

Webcams can be problematic when you switch to a Mac, because most ‘PC’ webcams don’t work. There are very few webcams on the market which come with OS X drivers, and the ones which do are generally quite expensive, especially if you’re looking for something cheap, or if you already have a webcam or two lying around.

The solution is Macam. Macam is a free driver in the form of one single file, which will allow hundreds of webcams to work on your Mac! It’s as simple as dragging and dropping a file into the correct folder. After that, webcams which didn’t work before will work with any app as if it is a ‘Mac’ webcam, as long as it is supported my Macam.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=k87JbUrwdpQ

Adding a sensor to the PRTG network monitor is the most basic task and it’s super simple.

Once you have PRTG correctly installed, you’ll want to go and connect to it through the web interface. After logging in, it’s a simple case of going to Sensors and Add Sensor

Since PRTG will automatically add the server it is installed on as a device, select “Add sensor to an existing device” and then “Probe Device” and hit Continue. You will now be presented with the huge list of available sensors: pick the one you want, click continue a couple of times and you’re done!

A sensor can be added to a map to make it really easy to view the data from it. Notifications can then be set up to alert you via email, text, etc. if a sensor enters a ‘Warning’ or ‘Down’/Error state.