Al Shamil with Mac

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It seems like many Mac users who want to connect their Macs to the internet using Etisalat’s Al Shamil connection run into trouble.
Often it’s Etisalat not knowing much about Macs or other problems. So I thought I’d put together this page with some information about what to do and think about.

Etisalat has a list of modems of which most are USB modems meaning they connect to the computer via USB. A problem with this is that it often requires a software driver installed on the computer and Mac drivers are not always available. Besides that point I wouldn’t want to occupy a USB port just for the internet connection when I can use the ethernet port for that. USB was not made for networking, Ethernet was.

In fact Etisalat even writes:

The minimum recommended PC configuration is:
- Pentium Class PC
- 128 MB RAM, 20 GB Disk Space
- 10/100 Ethernet NIC or a USB port
- Microsoft Windows 98/ME/NT 4.0/2000/XP *
or:
Apple Macintosh with an Ethernet port

So you need a DSL modem that uses Ethernet. We’re connected with a Linksys WAG54G with Al Shamil 2Mbps DSL at home and it works fine. The WAG54G is a DSL modem and wireless router in one and it does not require any software installation at all and it connects to the computer via Ethernet. In fact it has four ports for connecting computers via Ethernet. Since it’s also a wireless access point you can connect computers wirelessly to the internet using 802.11g. Etisalat even has a installation guide for the WAG54G.

Even though the WAG54G is a wireless access point you don’t have to turn the wireless on unless you’re really going to use it. It can work perfectly fine as a wired router with the wireless functionality turned off.

Finally I should point out that having a router between your computers and the internet is a very good thing and something I warmly recommend to everyone. A hardware router can protect you from many nasty things that exist on the internet.

Update: This seems pretty funny considering they advertise the Al Shamil service by showing a Mac.

New to Mac page

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Since I’ve been getting some questions about what new Mac users can do to learn about their new computer and software, I thought I’d put together a page with resources.

Aperture photography fundamentals

When Apple launched their new digital photography workflow application Aperture not long ago they also released some learning material. For example, there’s Aperture photography fundamentals [PDF] which is a great, free resources that can teach you more about digital photography. It’s probably more aimed at beginners but even more advanced users can probably find something new to learn.

Carrefour flyer misinforms

We were at a Carrefour store today to do our weekly shopping and they had a flyer laying around everywhere which I took a look in. The section on portable music players especially caught my attention.

The flyer shows a 30Gb Apple iPod for sale for 1245 Dhs. Notice how it says “Dolby Digital” next to the iPod? I was not aware that iPods did Dolby Digital and from what I can gather from the net they don’t. If you check the technical specifications they don’t mention Dolby. Then under the picture it says “Ipod” which I guess should be “Apple iPod” especially since they write the company names in front of the other players’ names.

The Creative Zen, which is also 30Gb, says “10000 photos” and “15000 songs” but the iPod says “25000 photos” and “15000 songs”. Why can you fit so many more photos on the iPod, I wonder? The Zen can do “4 Hrs. movie” something that is not mentioned at all for the iPod. The Touchmate is apparently a “Movie player”, a label that neither the iPod nor the Zen gets. All players but the Zen and the iPod are apparently capable of “MP3″, which also seems strange. I have put many MP3s on my iPod.

So I ask you, how is a consumer supposed to be able to make their mind up about which player to purchase if the information that Carrefour provides is this patchy at best and misleading and incorrect at worst?

Walt Disney will buy Pixar for $7.4bn

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EmiratesToday:

Walt Disney said it would buy Pixar Animation Studios in a $7.4 billion (Dh27.2bn) deal that gives Pixar animators creative control over the world’s most famous cartoon studio and makes Pixar CEO Steve Jobs Disney’s largest individual shareholder. Under the agreement, expected to close this summer, Jobs, who also heads Apple Computers, will join Disney’s board of directors. Disney will also surrender control of its world-famous animation studio, the birthplace of Mickey Mouse, to Pixar creative chiefs Ed Catmull and John Lasseter. Operations will be combined under Catmull’s leadership but separate studios will be maintained. Pixar’s six films with Disney, including Toy Story, Finding Nemo and The Incredibles, have grossed more than $3.2bn (Dh11.8bn). Pixar has more than $1bn (Dh3.7bn) in cash on its balance sheet, making the net value of the transaction about $6.3bn (Dh23bn), Disney Chief Financial Officer Tom Staggs said. Both boards of directors have approved the deal, which calls for 2.3 Disney shares to be issued for each Pixar share.

Perhaps the information wasn’t available in time for their deadline but it’s official, Disney bought Pixar. What this means we don’t know of course but there are some interesting speculations. I think it’s just another piece in Jobs’ grand-vision plan – whatever it may be. In fact he has very fittingly been labeled the new King of All Media.

[posted with ecto]

Mac games

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If you’re a Mac user you already know that it’s not the greatest gaming platform in the world. The availability of games has been pretty pathetic over the years, let’s be honest about it, and we’ve had to look with envy at the selection of games available for our Windows using friends. Things started to pick up with the arrival of Mac OS X and it’s not as bad as it has been. Chances are now with the arrival of the Intel Macs things will get even better. Now Macs run on the same CPUs and graphics cards as the Windows computers so you would think it would be even easier to develop cross-platform. Anyway, what if you’re looking for some games you can run on your Mac mini or similarly low-end Mac? There are quite a lot of games out there that may suit you. Here is a list of some sites where you can go hunting for games:

* http://www.insidemacgames.com/
* http://www.macledge.com/
* http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/games/
* http://www.macgamefiles.com/
* http://www.gamedb.com/ssps
* http://mac.ign.com/

‘Stay hungry, stay foolish’ – video

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In June 2005, Steve Jobs held the commencement address at Stanford University in the USA. Now you can get a video of his speech through iTunes (iTunes link that requires you to have iTunes installed). The video is free so you can get it even from the UAE. You will need an iTunes account I think but that’s free and requires no purchase.

[posted with ecto]

Sluggish iMac sales suggest early Intel transition challenges

Think Secret:

Apple’s decision to unleash Intel-based Mac systems six months ahead of schedule is proving less successful than the company anticipated. Two weeks following the Macworld Expo San Francisco keynote, sources report that sales of the Intel-based iMac are lower than Apple expected, even taking into account the seasonal post-holiday sales dip, suggesting the 2006 transition to Intel may be more difficult than the company has expressed.

It’s way too early to tell or have anything even remotely certain to say about this. In three-six months we’ll know much better how it’s going with the new computers. I’d be very interested in people’s reactions to he new Macs in the UAE. If you are going get one or if you have one already, let me know what you think.

Update: Other reports say the sales are going strong.

[posted with ecto]

Red Hat hopes for Linux on Intel Macs

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CNET News.com:

Red Hat spokeswoman Gillian Farquhar confirmed last week that the company hopes to help its developers figure out how to get Linux working on the new Macs. “That’s definitely happening,” Farquhar said of the effort, though it hasn’t gone far because the Linux seller doesn’t yet have any of Apple’s new machines.

This is good news, I think. If you didn’t know it, you can already before the arrival on the Intel Macs run a range of Linux distributions on your Macs. Just the other day I downloaded a live cd version of KUbuntu and booted it on my Mac mini. It worked great. It even picked up my wireless Apple keyboard and mouse without a problem, something that impressed me.

But Mac OS X is a great operating system, why would you want to run Linux? That’s a good question, and a hard one to answer. I think fundamentally the reason would lie with Linux being 100% open source meaning the source code is available for you to look at and modify if you so chose. This means you’re less restricted in what you can do with your OS and applications. Since Mac OS X has Unix underpinnings much software that can run on Linux can also run, with some modification, on Mac OS X. That’s not the case with all Linux software however. OpenOffice.org, for example, runs a lot better on Linux than it does on Mac OS X.

[posted with ecto]

TextEdit preferences

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I’m sure you all know of TextEdit, the simple texteditor that ships as a part of Mac OS X. You find it in your Applications folder. I don’t use it much so it’s been a while since I’ve had a look at it. I knew it could do some pretty advanced things, but I went to TextEdit’s preferences and was surprised at what I saw.

There are simple options like setting the Font and text size but with Mac OS X’s built-in spelling service you can get spell checking as you type in TextEdit. There are also options for setting metadata like Author and Company for a document, information that is no doubt used by Spotlight to help you find what you’re looking for faster. There are more options concerning how to save files, like how HTML files should be encoded. Another thing that surprised me was that TextEdit has support for styles, almost like Word and other word processors. Now I wouldn’t call TextEdit a word processor but it’s a pretty advanced text editor and it comes free with your Mac. That’s not bad.

Apple has a brief tutorial on some of TextEdit’s features.