Dimitris Kontaris Blog

One of the most impressive videos on the subject… Graphics, music and content wise…

Nature by Numbers from Cristóbal Vila on Vimeo.

I remember when I was younger, I enjoyed playing cardboard games with my family. Snakes and ladders, the game of life, then monopoly, checkers and finally chess. There were even more that I can’t recall but the bottom line is, they were analog, made from paper and plastic..

With the arrival of the computer and the laptop some of these games were digitally made for the screen, the keyboard and (later) the mouse. Nowadays, the tend to be digitalized for an even smaller platform once known as the mobile phone. The transition is not that smooth however… The only games still playable on such platforms are mainly chess, checkers and maybe backgammon.

The user experience tends to change with the interface. Apple has done a great job innovating the user interface for both the OS and the software

With the arrival of the iPad, the whole experience is about to change. The cardboard games we all loved have now decent screen size with great touch capabilities not imitating, but changing the experience entirely. Imagine the new effects in snakes and ladders, or the network capabilities. No one in the mood to play? No problem, just connect and play online, chatting at the same time. The user experience tends to change with the interface. Apple has done a great job innovating the user interface for both the OS and the software for an approximately 10 inch display. The cardboard games are just the fun part of this innovation.

In 1875, Alexander Graham Bell invented the phone. The network was clumsy and the quality of the communication laggy and poor.

135 years later, with satelites orbiting the earth, high speed networks, great quality of microphones and speakers and technology at its peak, the network is clumsy and the quality of the communication, laggy and poor…

Any thoughts?

Image From Wikipedia

These days I realized I needed a wireless printer. My iMac is on the one side of the room, the printer in a closet (to gain some desk space, and by “some” I mean a lot!) and my brother’s MacBook is in his room and away from the printer. So, when one of us wanted to print, we saved the document in question in a laptop and plugged the printer in. This was time consuming and at the same time, unproductive.

Then another issue came along. My brother was running out of HDD space. We realized that we have a lot of the same content on both our discs. So, we ended up needing a wireless printer and a network HDD. The thing is that our wireless modem-router that came with the provider was too limiting in term of signal strength and radius. So I either spent 100 for the printer and even more for a new network hdd or something else.

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Using an iPhone case for the Magic Mouse

Pretty much self explanatory… I was searching for a case to keep my magic mouse safe in the laptop bag when I realized that a plain iPhone case could do the trick!

Voila:

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Just a heads up..

When in the latest MacOSX you want to see all the open windows, you enable a pretty handy feature called “expose” where all the windows are displayed in random order. In Snow Leopard, Apple remade “expose” in order to give it a more tidy look.

Now, while on expose, if you are using Apple’s magic mouse, you can take advantage of its touch capabilities and navigate through the windows touching the mouse surface as you would do on a laptop.

Even though I do thing that navigation using the pointer is more easy, this feature shows the magic mouse’s potential and Apple’s “one careful step at a time” policy.

Dating back in December 2008, I wrote an article in a tech blog I had, but later abandoned, about the gap between netbooks and smartphones and about an all-in-one in between device. You can also find the article here in my site.

Well, one year and a month later, that device exists and is called the iPad…

A little heads up about YouTube video downloading on a MAC. It is simple, doesn’t require any plugins, hacking, or any online service whatsoever.

Just Safari which comes with a MAC.

1. Open Safari
2. Go to the page with the video in question. Lets head to YouTube.
3. Select the video you want to download and watch it load.
4. Open the activity window (Option + Command + A) or Window –> Activity

   
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There is another use of iPhone’s security feature. I am referring to the one where after 10 false code entries, your data is being deleted for your protection. (An optional feature of course).

If you decide that you want to swap your iPhone with a new or a used one and the salesman agrees to do it “now” there is a “small” privacy issue.. All of your data is on the device. Now what?

You can enable the feature (if not already enabled) and deliberately input a wrong passcode for 10 consecutive times. Your data will be erased and you are all set to make the swap!

I recently came across a very interesting post… Back in July 2007, Apple filled a patent about a button-less mouse with a somewhat touch interface concept…

Two years and several months later, Apple reveals the magic mouse, a button-less touch sensitive mouse with a great design and ergonomics…

THIS

TWO YEARS LATER…

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