Mac OS 10.7 (Lion)

   After months of waiting for the release of Mac OS 10.7 (Lion) I was able purchase it via the Mac app store. Here are some of the pro's and con's of the OS:

Pros:


1. Full screen apps are now a standard on Lion. For people who are not used to Mac OS, this may seam like not a feature. I didn't realize the difference it made until I started using it. Working on a 13" MacBook Pro (mid 2009) for a long time I had gotten used to working on a tiny screen. When I upgraded to Lion I couldn't believe how much of a difference it made. Now I, for the most part, always work in fullscreen mode on applications. Why? Firstly, it makes use of the whole entire screen and not just parts of it like before. Secondly, no more window management. Using a 4-finger gesture you can swipe between applications in full-screen mode. It's quite sleek.

2. Launchpad. Now there is a view on Lion that displays applications in an iOS like way. Now one can see all applications in a grid view across the entire screen. This makes it easier when trying to find an application in a hurly. Launchpad can be activated with a pinch gesture.

3. Mission Control. Mission Control allows one to see all windows in one area. Basically it is an updated version of Exposé. To note, the Exposé button on a Mac keyboard will launch Mission Control on Lion. What is different about Mission Control is that it now groups windows based on the window's application, which makes it easier to find the window you are looking for. Also Spaces is put on the top of Mission Control so you can easily create new desktops or delete desktops.

4. Spaces. Spaces was on Mac OS before but it was really hard to use. I gave up on it. Now Spaces has been updated and is a lot more easier to use. This is what I have been waiting for for a long time. Now, Spaces can easily be managed via Mission Control in an easy way.

5. Mail. Male has been update on Lion. It now has an iPad feel to it. It shows all your message headings  in a narrow column on the left of the screen and then shows the actual messages in a wider column on right. If you have two or more messages linked to an original messages (replied messages), it will show all your messages in a discussion view where you can scroll up and down showing all the messages in a discussion.
If you have a hard time visualizing this than go to the mail app on your iOS device, it looks exactly like that.

Cons (more bugs than anything):


1. Gestures. There is a learning curve to the new gestures. One of the fist things was the scrolling. In Lion scrolling is done based on what you would do on iOS. Scroll up to move the page down, and scroll down to move true page up. It is not necessarily a "con" but is a nuisance at first. Once you get used to it, it is fine.

2. For some reason Safari gets hung up when quickly scrolling through webpages. It will stop responding for a moment and then usually it will catch up and start working again.

3. A lot of time the close button on tabs in safari will not show. In order to close a tab you have to click on a different tab and then click back onto the tab you were trying to close. Once you do that the close button will re-appear.

4. On rare occasions Safari will not allow you quit the application. This gets really annoying because it will stop the computer from shutting down and then you are stuck until you can quit Safari.

5. Rosetta stone is no longer on Mac OS. This means you can't run your old PowerPC applications.

   These are just some of the pros and cons of Mac OS Lion. If you have any questions be sure to contact me.

WWDC 2011

     Today was the day that Apple demonstrated Mac OS Lion, IOS 5, and iCloud. Since Apple is not providing a live stream of the event I have to keep up with what is going on via Live Updates from MacRumors.com. I am going to watch the keynote once Apple provides it via podcast or mp4 download.
    The first thing Apple talked about was Mac OS Lion. This is their next operating after Snow Leopard. Basically Lion has a lot of new features, and Apple stressed that key features from IOS were integrated into Mac OS. For Example, apps on IOS are full screen and it has a home page where it stores the apps. This will be on Mac OS, so it will have an IOS feel to it. I, myself, don't really care much for IOS, but I am looking very much forward to the new Mail application and Resume built into Lion that resumes everything from where you last left (for example when you have to restart your computer). I am looking forward to this and many more features of Mac OS Lion. I will do an in-depth review on it when it is released this July. It will be offered as a download in the Mac app store for $29.99.
    The second thing Apple talked about was IOS 5. The next version of IOS will replace push notifications with a notification center. What is the point of that? If are a heavy gamer on idevices push notifications can be a pain. You will be in the middle of a very intense game ready to beat the next level when all of the sudden a box will pop up in the middle of the screen saying that somebody commented on your facebook status. You must press "close" or "view" to get rid of the pop-up. This can be very annoying when you are busy on an app and a push notification interrupts what you are doing. Apple, in the release of IOS 5, made a separate notification center that allows you to view all your notifications on one page. Another feature that seems useful is that they made IOS PC free. What does this mean? It means that you will no longer need the 30-pin connector cable to sync your device to itunes. You can now sync your device to iTunes via WIFI, no cable. Unfortunately this doesn't help me in the fact that I still have an 80gb iPod classic, I still need to sync if via a cable (doesn't run IOS). That's right, I am old school. These are just two of the features of IOS 5, but there are many more that I will be talking about when it is released this fall. No news on whether it is free or not though, but it sounds like it is a free download or else they would have given a price.
     The last thing that Apple presented today was iCloud. iCloud is pretty much like Mobile Me, but easier and free. Basically it syncs your documents, calendars, photos, and other media to the iCloud (servers at Apple) where then it can be synced instantly to all of your iDevices and computers. It works with Mac and PC. A feature that it has is when you purchase a song on, say your iPad, it will automatically download it to your Mac (or PC), your iPhone, and your iPod Touch. And don't worry, you only purchase the song once and will be synced to everything, it will not bill you four times. This iCloud service, as I said before, is free and it offers 5GB of storage.
     So that is all that Apple had to offer for WWDC 2011. I plan on reviewing all three of these products as they become available. If you have any questions feel free to comment or send me an email.

NQC

While I am on Summer vacation, I have been trying to find things to do. These past couple of days I decided to take out the old Lego Mindstorm RCX 2.0. I decided that I would build a lego robot with my brother.

We built a basic robot. Unfortunately, the Robotics Invention System 2.0 CD was only meant for older versions of Windows computers and we only had Windows 7 on all of our PC's (trust me, I hate Windows. I, personally, use a Mac computer). I tried running the installation disc anyways. I was able to install the basic drivers for the IR Tower and that was it. Still, after the installation, the IR Tower was not communicating with the RCX. Doing a quick search online I had found that there was an update to the IR Tower drivers that corrected the problem. After updating the drivers, the IR Tower was able to find the RCX. The only problem...the programming software for the RCX did not work. The Software was the easy type where it had a full GUI with drag and drop programs, easy for little kids to program the RCX.

Again doing some more research I found out that the RCX can be programmed in a language called NQC, which stands for Not Quite C. I found software that would let me program it in this language (Bricks Command Center). It was pretty much a text editor that let you type in all the code. It would then compile it and download it to the RCX.

Another problem....I did not know anything about NQC. Like always, I searched online and found a tutorial on NQC. It was actually way easier than what I had thought it would be. I was able to learn the language in about 2 days..not that bad.

Today I had set up an obstacle course to navigate the robot around. The problem was that it was in a different room than our Windows7 desktop was in, which meant that I would need to get the software onto a laptop. Unfortunately all of our Windows computers, are used for other things constantly during that day, and would not be practical to use for programming on. The only other option would be for me to load the software on Windows 7 in a virtual machine on my MacBook Pro. I already had Windows 7 as a virtual machine on my Mac so it was just a matter of installing the software. After installing it I just had to plug in the IR Tower. Because of running on a virtual machine I had to map the USB ports on the Mac to the virtual machine. That was easy to do but as I was doing it, the virtual machine program (Oracle VM Virtual Box Manager) stalled and ended up crashing. Now whenever I try to start Windows 7 through the virtual machine, the virtual machine hangs up and eventually crashes. Now I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. If anybody has any suggestions, please let me know. I am also waiting for Mac OS Lion to come out, so hopefully that will fix some of the issues. I will keep you posted on the robot.

Eons

Wow, it seems like it has been eons since I have touched this blog. In fact, I think that last post was Aristotle'd definition of Comedy, which I had posted for my classmates in my English class two years ago.

So, I think what I am going to do is is revamp and update this blog. What made me want to do this? Well, I just recently received inspiration to start blogging again from one of my friends who asked whether to use Blogspot or Wordpress. She finished creating her blog so go on ahead and check it out here.

Now I am a Google person and I like to go against the majority. It seems that most people use Wordpress, so that is why I am still loyal to Blogspot.