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Its been awfully ages since i have blogged so i decided to put up a Mac section being the only mac user amongst us.

My first article will be the best apps that i use

Internet Browsers
1) Internet Explorer 5

You guys know im kidding right… IE5 for mac has been scrapped by microsoft.

1) Shiira
This browser beats the pants off safari. PERIOD. If you look at the web page some of the cool features that it has include
-Built in RSS reader (Safari has one too)
-Tab Expose (Firefox has an extension but this one is prettier)
-Theme Support
-Sidebar like Opera (I can hear xlife booing)
-Private Browsing (for those lonely nights and the WWW)
-Page holder
-No need to import bookmarks or cookies! They use thefirefox or Safari ones already!
and being a mac… it has to be pretty
-PAGE TRANSISTION EFFECTS!

(I just discovered this one today hence the extended rant)

2) Safari
Apples bult in browser… I have to say it is fast…rendering pictures, pdf’s, media… you name it… it loads it without freezing the system. But the thing is you need SAFT to make it better. Saft cost money.. so safari is no2

3) Firefox
All time favorite of windows and my unix environments, sadly not my mac… Im using a 15in Powerbook G4 1.5Ghz so there is trackpad scrolling. What i find irritating is that the forward andback gestures are OVERLY SENSITIVE! you move 1 cm you scroll back 4 pages… Hard to micro manage page browsing if you know what i mean. Other than that Firefox 1.5 is known to cause Problems with Macs. But then the good things are still there, Extension, (bugmenot, foxpose, all in one.. i love you)

FTP/SSH/SFTP

1) Fugu
Yes like the freaking fish. It has EVERYTHING… ftp/ssh/tunnels/scp/sftp/klcc/ldp go google it up… If you are a mac user and dont use this, SHAME ON YOU!

2) Terminal
Nothing beats a good ol command line interface… the terminal can do your SSH/SCP/TELNET stuff quite well.. but i prefer to drag and drop in my free time out of uni and the damn Unix machines =p I know mac is a unix based machine but hey… its pretty. =p so things like scp lauh4@rs0.cs.man.ac.uk/CS2021/lab3/gfx/*.cpp . i DONT have to type over and over again if i make mistakes on the syntax. =) For a good ol command line time and to impress girls with your fingers of fury… use the terminal or even iTerm(tabbed terms, useful for Multiple programming, like my Java and C)

Music Players

1) iTunes
Its a Mac… Use iTunes… Period

Video Players

1) VLC
2) Mplayer OSX
3) QuickTime
4) Windows media Player. (Believe it) EDIT: Apple has scrapped WMP for Mac, instead there is Flip4Mac which allows you to play WMA, WMV, ASF etc. files in quicktime.. =) oh i love it…

p2p
1) Azureus
I havent found one more reliable yet… i dont like the fact that it takes up so much resources

2) Acquisition
All in one p2p client.. Quite clean… nice if it didnt cost money.

3) Limewire
=) ‘nuff sed

text editor/programming

1) xcode

Built into every tiger installation. It provides a platform for all programming language under the sun. Very easy to use! Oh and did i mention that terminal compiles my java,C and C++ stuff…

2) voodoo pad

useful to write wiki’s other than taht im using the lite version so nothing special…

IM clients

1) Adium
If only it dint retrieve from the stupid GAIM network… My groups dont work properly on it.. but i have to say other than taht its one of the better Clients i have used. tabbed windows, extensions, themes… Its GREAT!

2) MSN for Mac
Crap. No webcam support no nudges, no winks… its OLD… tsk tsk tsk… Im forced to use it coz its got my groups and Doesnt update with the GAIM network.

3) Fire
4) iChat

I dont use AIM… For god sake… Add MSN support man!

Others
1) Quicksilver
A MUST have… Keyboard Apps launcher… even launches documents thru keyboard shortcuts. me likey…

2) Onyx
3) Tinker Tool

Must Haves for cleaning up your system.

Well thats about it i guess… Im too lazy to have screenshots… Google is your friend…

Did i mention, WOW is mac compatible? The CD i got for my PC works on my mac too =p Gosh i love private servers. Next article will probably be “Macs dont crash? Think again… They crash elegantly =p” and other complaints about the mac =p Every good must come with a bad…

luc out….

I recently ate at Marche (which means market) Movenpick at The Curve for Fariz’ birthday. If you are new to the Movenpick phenomenon, eating at the restaurant is exactly what the name suggests – move-and-pick! Basically, upon entering the restaurant you are issued a “passport” which you can then use to go from counter to counter like a foodcourt. You then get your passport stamped depending on the food or beverage you ordered. At the end, you pay at the counter surrendering your passport. The food is OK lar… but a bit mahal. A decent meal will average RM25.

I was curious to note that the restaurant makes it clear that you have to surrender your passport, used or unused at the counter upon exit. Should you lose your passport, a RM200 levy is issued to which the proceeds are given to a charity of your choice. There is no indicator if the RM200 fine includes the value of the amount of food you consume or what the terms and conditions of the “passport” system are. That’s when I got curious… hmm…

Say this happens:

A family of five enters Movenpick and gets issued five passports. Father goes around the restaurant to order the food and drinks and is the only person in the family whose passport gets stamped. The total value of all F&B consumed is RM300. Daddy then ‘loses’ his passport. Family surrenders the remaining empty four passports. Daddy pays RM200 to charity of choice. Movenpick receives no revenue. Family saves RM100. Daddy dances the salsa. Molly jumps like a monkey. Mother humps the cow.

WTF?!

If anybody would like to try this, please let me know the outcome!

I am no expert in law where the sale and supply of goods are concerned. But to call the daylight robbery above akin to not paying at all would not be entirely accurate. Presumably the point of sale is when you give up the passport to the cashier. Without the passport documenting what a person has ordered save for the CCTV in operation I assume Movenpick has no right to charge for the alleged food consumed. I’ve sent Movenpick Malaysia an email to ask what the above outcome would be though. I’ll post it up as soon as I hear from them.

By the way, Movenpick at The Curve charges a bit for Service Charge. WTFBBQ?! I take my own food FFS!

First of all, I do not listen to the radio, which probably is the most obvious place to get new music. Why ? I just don’t like the idea of hearing the same Top 20 songs day in day out. Plus, the rather substansial egoistic part of me likes the idea of liking songs that nobody else has heard of, nonconformism ftw !

Anyway, I’ve been using Pandora for a while now.

How does it work ?
I’m not too sure, something about breaking down a song into distinct musical attributes and using these attriubtes to suggest similar songs. So all you have to do is either enter an artist name or (even better) the title of a song you like and it’ll see if it’s on the list and then suggest songs similiar to the qualities of the song you’ve chosen.

Does it work ?
Yes. More or less anyway, found more than a few songs that I like already, and some of them from some pretty obscure artists, yay ! A few notes though, having a broadband connection is more or less a requirement since as far as I can tell, you actually download the whole song, and theres a limit on how many songs you can skip in a certain amount of time. You do sometimes get long streaks of songs you don’t like, but as long as you get that one song that gets stuck in your head, it’ll be worth it.

And in addition to using the above, there’s always the songs from those many many US TV series you’re probably hooked to. Found some good songs from series such as Grey’s Anatomy, House M.D. and Medium. So where do you go after finding the title/artist ? That’s where p2p file-sharing comes along =P But a good website to get songs is Singingfish, it’s a search engine for songs and you can download the songs directly, providing of course that the query you entered is not too obscure =P (eg. If someone can please get me Merrick – Infinity, that’d be great. Merrick = Inara George and Bryony Atkinson btw.)

Have fun finding new music.