Under the Sea

This song was in my head for the past few hours, so I thought I should share. From Disney's The Little Mermaid and performed by Samuel E. Wright as Sebastian (a red Jamaican crab, apparently), Under the Sea is one of those in-movie songs from Disney that would occasionally pop into my head. Hope you like it as much as I do.

My first hours with the late 2014 Mac Mini

#157331713 / gettyimages.com

First comment I received upon delivery to my doorstep (ordered via online Apple store - took just about 3 working days to arrive) was in the tune of "really? That's all?" because a much bigger desktop was expected. There were just three packages:

1. Apple Wireless Keyboard and Magic Trackpad

2. Mini DisplayPort to VGA adaptor 

3. THE Mac Mini, of course 

Next up was to open the packaging and set up the Mac Mini. Pairing the keyboard and trackpad was a breeze as it was all automated even before the Mac load up the OS. Connecting to my wifi was a pain because I kept getting disconnected so I disabled it. Finally, after keying in my name and password as the admin, I am in OS X Yosemite. 

Frankly, my heart dropped a little expecting to see the colours pop out like from an iMac or a MacBook but I know, I’m using the poor guy’s Mac so it’s my screen that’s not producing the colours. I quickly went on to launch that gear-looking program called “System Preferences” to set up my wifi and proceeded to install apps from the Mac App Store. The first one was, amusingly, Pocket, followed by Feedly. I still can’t quite get over why I searched for Pocket first but it is a great app after all.

Next, I started to chat with my bud via Messages (that was after setting up and getting it connected to my Apple ID, of course) and he reminded me all about Apple’s sandbox so I had to download Google Chrome browser by first launching Safari to go to Chrome’s website to download the installer. Installing third party software that’s not Apple approved was not easy at all (first time using OS X, remember?). After the installation a window popped up and I was staring at it not knowing what to do for quite awhile until I clicked on the huge Google Chrome icon and dragged it out of the window. Ah, so that was how it should be done. =.=“

I spent the rest of last night and the wee hours of this morning reading through my RSS feeds via Feedly and then, bed time. Oh did I mention that I was pleasantly surprised by the Magic Trackpad and OS X’s awesome gesture controls? It was almost like using a touchscreen and not a desktop! Gosh, I wonder why Microsoft never made the trackpads even half as good. It’s all in the software, right? After just a night of using the Magic Trackpad, I absentmindedly did the same gestures with my office laptop trackpad only to be reminded that I was using Windows.

And with that, I would like to end this post and prepare for bed, TONIGHT. ;)

Why the iPod classic had to go - straight from the lion's mouth

Engadget nailed it:

"We couldn't get the parts any more," explained Tim Cook. "They don't make them any more." While the iPod Classic isn't exactly a creaky transistor radio just yet, that's how it went down. "We would have to make a whole new product.... the engineering work to do that would be massive." The difficult truth that some of you probably don't want to hear: "The number of people who wanted it is very small."

So the story is no more parts and it's not worth it to redesign it because not "many" people want it.

Surprise!

First blog post from my first ever Mac, a Mac Mini. Came across this cool photo via flickr Blog and because I have a thing for Minions, I really thought I should share it here.

via flickr blog.

Hybrid Play

Once upon a time, we were all worried that kids will no longer visit playgrounds. Instead, they would stare at their parents' (or even their own, GASP!!!) PCs, smartphones or tablets (or phablets) all day. Rest assured, Hybrid Play has something that will take care of this, sort of. Merging the smartphone or other smart devices with their own "clip", children will need to physically do something to the outdoor playground play things for another thing to happen on the screen. Check out the video below and you might just breathe a sigh of relief:

The next generation is once again safe from the Wall-E phenomenon! 

via Engadget.

Bloated Fruit

Apple's gone a long way and I wouldn't agree more with this article about too many things to focus after the most recent event.

Apple currently makes five different iPads (ten if you include the cellular ones), six kinds of Macs, four kinds of iPhones, three kinds of iPods, a set-top box and soon, 34 different styles of watch. And that's before you consider its music and movie businesses, its software business and its imminent role as a global payment service. It's even taking on the phone networks with Apple SIM.

via techradar.

The Missing Link

Where is the missing one? In my stomach, of course. Burp?

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The missing link.

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Apple 16 October 2014 Event - The Aftermath

Even with not much expectations on the 16 October 2014 Apple event (to be frank, I was actually only hoping for a new Mac Mini) I found it lacking with a Phil Schiller that seemed to be less than his usual enthusiastic self. 

First of all, I'm glad that Apple reintroduced the numbering system into their iPad product lines and all's well with yet a thinner body, Touch ID, new processor, better camera, etc. However, that's more a refresh than any major innovation. The Retina iPad Mini 3 was mentioned quickly with even less fanfare.

The new Retina 5K iMac sounds cool with such a nice screen but that's something beyond my reach so it garnered nothing more than a quick "wow" from me.

My heart almost dropped when I thought it was the end of the event but alas the refreshed Mac Mini was introduced quickly with a lower price point. I think I'm going to get one! Just like Phil Schiller said, a first Mac. 

Despite a refresh and a price "drop", I can't help feeling that it's not really a super bargain that Apple would want us to believe. There's no more quad core i7 and apparently, RAM is no longer user upgradeable. Well, there is better graphics, even for the base model (which essentially is a base Macbook Air and iMac). Sigh, so things are really not as rosy but I most likely will get the mid-range version. It is still the cheapest Mac around after all and that's all I can afford at the moment.

Cloverfield Revisited

One of my buds and I left the cinema after the first 20 minutes of this crazy shaky cam of a movie called Cloverfield. I thought I would never have anything to do with that movie anymore because the dizzy after taste actually lingered for hours despite only watching the first 20 minutes.

Who would've thought I watched the last 20 minutes over satellite TV. Thank goodness crazy shaky cam movie was not so dizzifying on normal television. Since I hated the movie when it first existed, this last 20 minutes didn't change anything. It only added to my amusement as to why the bunch of people would always be around the ugly monster or why would the monster kept on hanging around them. I'm just glad that there WAS an ending. Bye bye Cloverfield!

The Box of Chopsticks

Life as we know it, is definitely not a box of chopsticks where everything is consistent. A box of chocolates is indeed a closer analogy but I do like my simple B&W attempt of a box of disposable chopsticks taken from a Japanese restaurant.

Have a look at life this week.

Pollution AGAIN

Last year, a million Klang Valley consumers were left without water for hours if not days due to diesel contamination. Today, another incident of hydrocarbon pollution which apparently affects at least 800,000 residences of Klang Valley happened again.

Come on, what's the matter with you terrible people dumping things into the river!?!? Please stop it! &@%#!!!!!! Instead, go pour into your own mouth. That will do.

via The Malaysian Insider.

"Look Up" and notice the smartphone and social media plague

Nice video that basically states it all about a "plague" that's been among us for some time now carried by the useful information technological devices we have on our desktop right up to our pockets.

Not to say that it's all negative because there are tonnes of positivity. Like everything else, moderation is the key. :)

AmazingSuperPowers: Back In My Day

Great comic for a Sunday.

A grandpa was mentioning to his grandson during his days, there were lack of certain technologies in sci-fi... and he is totally disappointed that there're still none of those now. You'll have to read the comic to really feel the fun factor.

Have a nice day!

Way too long, indeed...

I particularly like Apple's tag line of the upcoming 16 October 2014 invite because "it's been way too long' offers a glimmer of hope of a new Mac Mini and what else that've not been updated for ages? Ah, the Apple TV, iPod series of products... heck it could also mean new designs for all those Macs!

And what's with the colourful outlines of the background that otherwise look so similar to the recent invite? Hmmm... speculations run wild as the event approaches...

The Brick Wall That Came Along

Was on my way home and while waiting for the lights to turn green, noticed this brick wall. Not a common sight so I decided to snap and Instagram it when I got home. Taken by a phone so this is a heavily cropped and straightened photo with a filter applied. You wouldn't want to see the original photo lest you would get really disappointed!

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The Brick Wall

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Path to the Bright Side

Not really but to make this photo possible, I increased the exposure - now possible with the stock camera app on iOS 8. It's more like a high key photograph. The purpose is to produce a "path to enlightenment" or if you're into Star Wars, "path to the bright side". ;)

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Path to the bright side.

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Spiralling into your mind...

"Your eye lids are heavy, you are sleepy, you will obey me once you wake up from this slumber..."

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Hypnotic spiral.

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Two Minutes with the iPhone 6 Plus

A resourceful friend managed to get a gold iPhone 6 Plus even before it officially reach our shores and I was somehow lucky enough to handle it for a couple of minutes. My first thought was represented relatively well by the image above. The thing was humongous. Holding it next to a Galaxy Note (the first one), the iPhone was visibly taller but not significantly wider.

The next thing I did was to try Reachability. Double tap on the home button and voila! Unfortunately, my thumb was not long enough to reach the other corner so one-handed usage on the bigger iPhone 6 would be a challenge for me. After that, I tried to put it into my work pants and ok, it fit. Didn't manage to try that while sitting, though. My friend stressed that the phone was blazing fast and he proved it by opening some CAD drawings (with the AutoCAD 360 app). While on the iPhone 5 the drawings needed to keep refreshing and were super lagging whenever we pan or zoom, on the iPhone 6 Plus they were smooth and I didn't notice any refreshing of the images. I wouldn't have been that impressed had I read this article earlier on how the newest iPhone managed to outperform the Galaxy S5 and HTC One.

I had been dreaming of owning a iPhone 6 Plus mainly because of its battery life and the potential to replace my ageing iPad (still not possible as of this moment because there are still plenty of apps on my iPad that could not run on the phone). After my hands-on for two minutes, I'm still hoping to own one but slightly, only slightly, less sure about it.