Painting Monalisa using MS Paint

My sister can draw good pictures using Microsoft Paint, but this is absolutely amazing. I could not believe MS Paint could make a painting this complex. But I guessed I was wrong. Simply Amazing

Apple Ad Spoof - Wii and PS3

Wii is the way to go!

Testing ecto

Qumana did not work with Blogger2.0, so I am trying ecto to see whether this can be my solution.

iBook as a Wireless Router in a Hotel

This may not new and some of you probably already know it, but I tell you anyway. In mac OS X, there is a function call Internet Sharing, which - pretty straightforward - shares your internet connection on your Mac. My buddy visited me in my hotel room to find I brought my iBook and my office laptop (a Thinkpad). He brought his MacBook and wanted to connect to the net, and he turned the sharing in my iBook that was connected to the hotel network. And he found the performance was acceptable. I was excited, so I opened up my Thinkpad and I saw my iBook as one of available network. I managed to connect and yes, the performance is acceptable.
Now I had my iBook always connected in my room and also use it as my personal wireless router. Very cool!

OpenMoko - alternative to iPhone

OpenMoko, originally uploaded by smstextnews.

Launched in February 2007, OpenMoko offers linux-based phone solution - and hopefully backed by open source community to the market. The phone has touch screen that accepts both stylus pen and finger and sports GPS. Some concerns occured when Apple said that iPhone is a closed system - especially from geek community. For these guys, OpenMoko may be a better deal. It will work under SyncML so someone will create the iSync plug-in, undoubtfully.
Current UI may be too linux-like and not as fancy as iPhone, but I am positive there will be solution like iPhony available soon.

iPod Mobile

IMG_1977, originally uploaded by Olivas2005.

Forget iPhone, get iPod Mobile. iPod integration is the new hype in automobile industry and Citroen took it too seriously. But it's marketing. And they put quite significant size of Apple logo - instead of Citroen.

2007 - I Welcome Superdrive....

Yay! My order of DVD Writer Dual Layer arrived this morning. I went straight home and installed it in my first generation Mac Mini. I bought this Mac Mini on day one Apple sold it - and I was the last one who managed to get this baby. The person after me had to wait for three weeks for next delivery. So it is something for me. And now it has Superdrive! Yay (again)!

Apple Welcomes 2007

This is what is showing in the start page of www.apple.com today - still 1 January in the US. Apple must be up to something big early this year. Could it be Leopard comes out sooner? I can't wait for the Keynote on Macworld 2007. One more week, baby, bring it on!

New Year, New Toys

I had a low key new year's eve. Just went to a friend's house, ordered Thai food, beers, and watch NFL, Redskins v. Giants. No I am not a fan of NFL. In fact that was the first game I watched fully. Giants won, I think, and Tiki Barber had an awesome touchdown. I brought my iBook with me, so I also browsed the internet and play Raiden.
My buddies then went of for a cruise, and I went back home straight. I could not spent big money this time, although I was really tempted. I am back to my daily routine at home, turned on TV and back on the net. That is how I spent the last of 2006.
Now is 2007. What am I looking forward to? Macworld - especially the Keynote. I want to see my option of toys this year. I am giving up my iBook this year, I am planning to give it to my special someone, and I want to see what is (will be) available for me this year.
Macbook? Hmmm...looks nice. Macs are so popular nowadays (which is good for Apple) and I can see people carrying Macbooks everywhere. I'm going to miss the uniqueness of my iBook (clamshell Indigo, 576MB memory, airport, Tiger - how cool is that). I bet it is going to be a looker when I gave it to special someone. Anyway, Macbook will be my realistic option for my next laptop.
Unless they come up with 12" lines - MacBook or MacBook Pro. Or maybe 13" now - widescreen. I am not a fan of big screen laptops anymore. I used to have one for work - 17" - and it was impractical. I did not need the real estate all the time. Now I am carrying 12" Thinkpad for my work, with 19" screen monitor on my office workstation. That is my best setup. When I am travelling, I can manage working in 12" display as I mostly do emails and some office documents. If I need multiple windows with multiple applications, I try to do it in the office. So definitely I am going for petite laptops. Bring on MB Lite...
I am also looking forward for Leopard (Mac OS 10.5) to arrive. And it's better be soon, because a lot of people are holding their next purchase to come with the new OS. Mac users need to show it off to Vista users, right? And with no free upgrade option like that of Vista, we prefer to wait.
And iPod. I still have my dependable 4th generation iPod always in my backpack. I had no good justification to get iPod Video. iTunes Store in Australia don't sell movies, and I cannot see myself watching 2-hours movie in such a small screen. And I also don't see why I need to carry my movies everywhere. iPod is a personal entertainment system by nature. Range of accessories extended it to be enjoyable by friends and peers, like speakers and car connection kits. But it still hard to share a small screens for movies. Well it is still possible to have video solution for cars, but I don't have a car. iPod Video never went to my shopping list until I decided to pre-ordered Tubular. With Tubular, I can browse, view, and download YouTubes clips and export them to iPod Video. Now that is cool. iPod Video, you are on my list.
iTV or whatever the new name is. Nah. This should wait. I have my mac mini to do the job. It is now my entertainment centre running equinux' Media Central. Although I may be in the market for Elgato's EyeTV USB tuner combo DTT and Analog and a widescreen monitor. That'll bump up my media ecstacy, for sure. Oh, superdrive is on the way so I can burn some of my movies to DVD. My hard drives are almost full.
And Nintendo Wii. I missed the first batch of release because I was so indecisive. Now the next shipment is around mid-January. I will still be indecisive then, but it is on the list.
ADSL 2+ modem should be on the way to replace my old modem and giving me the maximum speed that I want to see.
This should be an exciting year..... Happy New Year 2007

Let the Game Begins...or Not Yet?

Yup, guys... HD-DVD and Bluray DVD. Which one will survive? Like movie industry remakes, some people said that this one is the old story of VHS and Betamax. VHS took the lead with support from porn...uhhh...adult industry. The industry printing movies in VHS, creating demand for VHS players (no statistical backup, but it was believed that they influenced consumer demand) and pushing the VHS price down due to economies of scale. Movie industry then went VHS as it allowed bigger margin from lower cost. Betamax has better quality in term of picture, but they lost the biggest selling point, content.
I also believe that iPod video benefitted from the growing service of adult content for iPod, especially outside US. iTunes Store only sells music videos in non-US markets. I bet being able to have porn at your disposal almost anywhere created demand for iPod videos - at some rate. No, I don't have porn in my iPod. :)
I believed that the battle between HD-DVD and Bluray will be decided by adult industry. However, it seems that it won't be the case, as per article here. They decided to wait. They waited for the games industry, the war between XBox and PS3, representing HD-DVD and Bluray. What? So we have a new twist on this remake story....games. Off course, games back then used catridges. They were not part of the equation that time, nor computer industry. So will the success of HD-DVD or Bluray depended on Microsoft and Sony? I think not. It depends on the game software industry. EA, Ubisoft, etc will play major role in this war. They are the ones whom will decide which platform they want to go to more, just like adult industry in previous war.
XBox and PS3 still playing some role, but at the end the content decides. I still believe in that. XBox sold more consoles this year, they are ahead in the game. But it ain't over, nor started. XBox in the hand of users now don't have HD-DVD, they need to fork out extra dollars to buy external drive. Still a question whether users want to upgrade to HD-DVD. Microsoft may wanted to play it safe by not including HD-DVD built-in. They still have option to sell external Bluray in the future. Sony, however, went all the way with PS3 and Bluray. Not surprising as Sony owns Bluray. Sony believes that they have enough content to support Bluray - support from Sony's movie distributions. Still, Sony has to get the buy in from games industry - really, really bad. Sony needs to sell PS3 to them and the customers. Honestly, PS3 is still the cheapest Bluray player in the market, too bad not cheap enough. Sony sees PS3 as a way to penetrate households with Bluray players, and willing to subsidise - PS3 is sold at loss, according to some report. But the market saw it as a game console, not an entertainment centre - as Sony wanted it to be. Game console should be fun, spending a lot of money is not fun, for most of us. Personally, I still go with Nintendo Wii.
There is another player that may actually the biggest player of all. This player tends to lay low and undetected. Pirates. While the others considered content is the biggest investment, for them it is almost none. They can drive low cost production and bring down overall price. They may even drives the production of cheap players. But now they facing a big hurdle. Digital Right Management (DRM). Both HD-DVD and Bluray will implement DRM on contents. My guess is whichever the format they broke first, it will be quickly mass-produced at the quantity unimaginable. Industries will lost from contents, but we will know which one is the popular format.
I am indifference on either format, but it is a hell of a war to watch......

I can't blog Digg to my new blogger! Aaaargh!

I love digg. It let me find news that I like to read, sorted for me. Well, interesting news for me mostly related to Apple anyways and digg has Apple news in separate section. Cool! I also blog the digg news a lot. Sometimes I visited digg site during my lunch break, and I just blogged it so i can read it later at my personal time - talk about dedication, ha!
And today I made a stupid decision, upgrading my blogger to the new - no longer beta - blogger. It seemed like a good idea initially until I went to digg site and click the "blog it" link. digg said that I migrated to new blogger..... Cool, that was what happened, I thought. I just went to profile setting and change the username, I thought. Didn't work. I set up manual setting, didn't work. I started to get nervous...
I went to blogger help, and follow the discussion that led me to the link on blogger help saying that the blogging function on the third party needed to be updated, and only flickr had done so. Aaaaaargh! I want my old blogger back! They supposed to warn me before I went ahead with the upgrade, or did they? Honestly, I didn't pay attention to the terms & conditions. Like normal average guy, I just ticked it to go ahead.....
I want to blog my digg news......:(

Install Windows to a Macintosh USB drive (without Bootcamp).

A guide to running Windows on an Intel Macintosh, from an external disk drive, without using Bootcamp. Earlier guides require the internal drive to be partitioned with Bootcamp, leaving an unused windows partition that just wastes space.

read more | digg story

Poor boy .Mac alternatives

Whether or not you can make do without the annual subscription service offered by Apple depends wholly on your willingness to nit-pick through the alternatives. The following article will break-down available solutions based on the specific “conveniences” you wish to retain while saving a little money in the long run.

read more | digg story

More PC buyers will be going Mac in 2007

"Intel CPUs and dual-booting Windows are just two reasons more people will be choosing the Mac." I see the general buzz around Macs as a reason for those who've been holding off to finally take the plunge and buy a Mac. And the "halo effect" _does_ exist.

read more | digg story

Leopard build 9A321: all the new features listed!

The latest build (9A321) of Mac OS X Leopard 10.5 is revealing several neat features. We gathered all this information in one article for you, Mac OS X fans!

read more | digg story

Long, Hodgman (Mac & PC Guys) win Advertising Award

Justin Long and John Hodgman, the actors who portray a Mac and PC from Apple's current 'Get a Mac' advertising campaign, won a 2006 Garfield Bobby Award in the Best Performance, Male category from Advertising Age. The hands-down winners this year are Justin Long and John Hodgman, better known to you as Mac and PC in the campaign for Apple Computer. Congratulations Mac, congratulations PC.

read more | digg story

Bring your Mac OS X Application in Your Thumb Drive...

Portable iChat, Safari, Mail, iCal, and Address Book

read more | digg story

Teenager receives Zune with preloaded porn

A couple on the south side of Chicago gave their 12-year-old daughter a media player...but it came with a whole lot more than an instruction manual.

read more | digg story

Telstra offers Next G via USB

Telstra has quietly started offering two new ways of accessing its new nation-wide third-generation Next G mobile network, with two new USB modems now on sale. Need to check if it is Mac friendly.....

read more | digg story

Happy Birthday iPod!

I have my iPod available for me most of the time. I carry its charger most of the time. I can't imagine how I go through the boring moments in my life without my iPod. Walking from home to the bus stop, sitting (or standing) in the bus to the office, walking to the office... my iPod spices it up with music in the background.
It used to hold all my songs, but with my ongoing growing collections - and iTunes Store availability in Australia makes it keep going strong, I made my ol' 20 GB iPod store randomly selected tracks from my collection everytime I plug it to my mac mini. I have no solid judgement to get the shiny 60GB model, yet. But how I love it.
And to learn that iPod was born when Toshiba showed Apple its (then) new 1.8" hard drive without knowing the use of it....

Happy Birthday....