Jul 25
MoggyAngry Birds, App Store, Apple, Software, iPad
Sketchbook Pro (£4.99)
I love this app, and in many ways the best I have. However there are a couple of niggles that stop me from rating this 5 stars, and with any luck these will be addressed in forthcoming updates.
- when importing a photo for a new layer, there is no way to rotate, resize or adjust the imported photo on the canvas, which is very restricting
- a crop tool would be nice, rather than the standard 4:3 canvas
- a text tool, so we can type into images
The great thing is that I apart from these things, I can’t find anything to complain about, as such. 
Tracking my finger is very good, the zoom is fantastic and best of all, I brought it when it was half price!! Horrahh!
My rating: 4 out of 5
Pages (£5.99)
Don’t get me wrong, I like the Pages app, and recommend it, but here are a few annoyances that I would like to see addressed in future updates:
- being able to save and upload to MobileMe iDisk. Currently you to sync via iTunes, or use the buggy iWork.com service.. Or email.
- being able to print wirelessly… Just make it work!
- ability to import/add more fonts to the iPad library.
- a way to draw directly (ie. Diagrams, pictures, etc) into the app. This would be really helpful for lecture note taking.
Other than that, it’s very polished and good to use.
My rating: 3 out of 5
Angry Birds HD (£2.99)
The HD version couldn’t have been executed better, it really is brilliant. I was effected by the previous version that kept on crashing on opening when connected to the internet, but it was fixed quickly which shows great feedback response. However, I have two digs with the HD version…
1. Is it really worth £2.99? The original app is 59p, which is five times less, but I wouldn’t call this game five times better.
2. Thanks, your making my iPhone feel really annoyingly small!
My rating: 4 out of 5
The Metro (free)
Right, the good…
- free, very intuitive and easy to use
- really takes advantage of the iPad’s large screen
- not very buggy, simple and effective.
The bad…
…the Metro can’t report news for ****. The articles seem to be written completely by blind, brainless idiots who I’m surprised can only just string together a sentence, most of which are about whatever new errand Cheryl Cole or Russell Brand are up to.
If you are looking for quality journalism for free, just head over to the newly designed BBC news website, and add the icon to the home screen. Simple.
My rating: 3 out of 5
Jun 24
MoggyMac, Software, iPhone/iPod touch
The iBooks app is something I feel the iPhone has needed for a long time, and in this how-to post, I’ll be showing you how to make your own PDF iBook’s for the iPhone.
Ok, the first thing you’ll want to do is create your TEXT (.txt) file. For the purposes of this tutorial, I’m going to start off by using a pre-made eBook (To Kill A Mockingbird) that can be downloaded from this website.
Open the file in Pages.
Once the document has opened, the first thing you want to do is open the Inspector panel. If you don’t have it open, use shortcut: Option + Command + I
We need to change a few things here. Observe the BEFORE and AFTER stages here:
The highlighted areas are those that need changing. Firstly, press the Page Setup button. This will bring up the dialog box below:
Select the Paper Size drop-down, and choose 3 1/2 x 5 (it’s near the top of the long list)
Hit OK and that’s that.
Going back to the Inspector window, change all the values of 2.54cm in the four margins boxes, to 0.5cm.
Lastly, uncheck the two tick-boxes next to Headers and Footers.
Now that is done, go to the main document and use these two shortcuts: Command + A, which will select all the text in the document, and then Command + T to bring up the Font dialog box.
The default font for .txt files is Helvetica, which is okay, but I prefer changing it to something more readable, something like Georgia. Also note that I have bumped down the font size to 10:
That’s the formatting done!
Your document should look something like this…
All that remains now is to export it, and sync it to your iPod touch / iPhone. To export, go to the File menu, and select Export…. This will bring up this dialog box. Select PDF, best image quality, and Next…
Save it to somewhere (it doesn’t matter where!) on your Mac, and then go ahead and drag the PDF file into iTunes. If you have the iBook’s app, next time you plug in your iOS device, the PDF will automatically sync. Done!
This is what it the book will look like on your iPhone:
Jan 11
MoggyApple, Me, Software, iPhone/iPod touch
Today was mostly spent trying to simply… work… my iPod touch. It’s a year old now, I’ll give it that, and it has been through a lot… but it should still work fine.
Firstly, it died while I was listening to a great tune on my new bad ass headphones. The iPod then decided to rid itself of the volume controls… and the speaker wasn’t working. No music at all. Turns out it thought it was connected to an iPod dock and trying to work likewise. Plugging it into a computer then did something… shock, it worked, only to find it didn’t every time I unplugged it. I managed to fix the problem by tricking it when restarting the device, unplugging it in the process.
So I’m on my way home, and the next problem occurs. Volume. The device is down in my pocket, and I reach down to press the exterior button for up-volume, only to find it goes up… way up. It maxes out, and every time I tried to pull down the volume down it just went back up again. Rather irritated, I rebooted it again.. for about the 5th time today.
When I’m actually at home, something bizzare happens. Turns out after and during all of this, the speaker built into the device wasn’t working. Not just in the music functions, everything, all the apps. After a bit of wondering, it turns out something was wrong with the headphone socket… it was trying to tell me headphones were plugged in all the time, even when it had the headphones unplugged.
Numerous reboots, syncs, charges and restores later… it stayed completely the same. FML.
At this point, I gave up and upgraded the iPod software. Turns out it had 3.0 and 3.1.2 was available.. which I’ve now upgraded to… and surprise surprise, everything now works!
This post is not a ‘FML’ post, nor a dig at Apple or the product… but I am actually offended when the iPod, a lifeless inanimate object tries to tell me I’m doing something wrong.. like that theirs a dock connected. Or my headphones are plugged in. NO, they are not. Now, fuck off and get working again.
Sep 17
MoggyApple, Mac, Software, Update
If you have a mid-2008 or earlier MacBook Pro (this one, the previous gen, non-unibody), and you have upgraded to Snow Leopard – you may have discovered this fantastic new feature that wasn’t previously available for our model.
Snow Leopard adds the four-finger trackpad gestures, when Leopard could only previously handle three-finger gestures on this generation MacBook Pro. Yes, the unibody MacBook Pro’s could do the four-finger gestures in Leopard, but Snow Leopard extends the compatibility to all previous MacBook Pro’s (though someone may need to confirm this for me.)
More
Aug 29
MoggyApple, Mac, Software, Update
Personally, I think I will be spending out the little £25 it takes to upgrade to Apple’s new OS, Snow Leopard. After all, I am a semi professional Mac user and I use an awful lot of processor intensive applications – so the snappier speeds Apple is promising will save me some time in the future, which is nice. I am also curious just about any new Apple software anyway, and I do like keeping up to date. Hence, why, I have ordered my copy from Amazon, and it’s on its way.
Having said all that… is Snow Leopard worth it… for the average user… I mean, really!? I have two personal friends with Mac computers – but I wouldn’t say SL is a must for either of them. Both own relatively new MacBook’s, but use them for general work and activities (like iPhoto and Pages). Wow, these are highly processor intensive, aren’t they. To be honest, I don’t think either of them would really care, and while £25 is cheap for an OS, it’s still a fair bit of money – that’s a good 30 or so iTunes songs… and about what I spend on my lunches for about two week period!
But hey ho, that’s my opinion and I thought I’d voice it out.
Aug 15
MoggyDesign, Fonts, Software, Web Design
Here are 4 free, clean, slick and modern fonts you may want to download and install… for free.
Bastardus Sans – download
Blue Highway – download
Sansation – download
Union – direct download link, and bold direct link
Enjoy. Share some of your own in the comments below if you so wish.
Feb 18
MoggyComputer, Microsoft, Software, Windows
I have recently started running VMware on my Mac with Windows XP Professional, and today I thought I’d download the free trail of Office 2007 Professional to see what it’s like, and after the install, I am not happy at all. Here is a list of today’s events:
Morning
- Go to MS badly designed website
- Click on Download link
- Dead link, go back, try again, try elsewhere.
- Get asked for my email for an activation key… (why do I even need to do this?!)
- Download a tiny 700kb file… wondering wtf this is…
- Installs/Opens a download manager, starts downloading Office 2007; something I would have expected to do in point 2.
- The file is over 800MB. Woah. This takes a while….
Lunch
- Download manager crashes about 300MB (or about 1hr in), have to start download again.
Late Afternoon
- Finally downloads the whole thing, a long while later.
- Starts extracting the download
- Crashes
- Bluescreen, restarts XP.
- Lanches extraction again, 2 minutes later, crashes…
- Bluescreen, restarts XP.
Evening
- Finishes extraction. Now opens setup.
- On the first step of setup I get an error! I need a new version of Windows Installer, apparently.
- Download this.
- Crashes, Closes.
- Reopen Setup.
- Now installs some rubbish “Live Accounting” or something….!?
- Finishes.
- Now I manually open the actual Office setup.
- Wants my product key/serial. I copied the code from Safari, but wouldn’t accept the paste into the box. Had to type it in, letter by letter.
- Finally lets me accept the terms
- Install begins.
- Finally finishes. The install is ironically the smoothest part of the complete day.
I’m no expert at the technology behind installing applications, but NEVER have I gone through so much trouble trying to install and download this one. When I downloaded iWork ‘09 for a free trial it was far simpler, and just worked – no crashes, no serials, no bugs, no nothing.
But anyway, there you have it. If you’re thinking of downloading Office 2007 Professional, be prepared.
Dec 10
MoggyComputer, Media, Software
As you may be aware, I proudly own Final Cut Express and have no intentions of ever switching from it because it is a truly fantastic video editing application.
However, I have recently downloaded the free trial version of Adobe’s Premiere Pro CS4 and tried it out, and here are, after a few days of use, are some good and bad things about Premiere compared to Apple’s Final Cut Express – from the point of view of a moderate (but getting professional) video editor.
Final Cut Express:
Adobe Premiere Pro CS4:
Awesome Stuff about Premiere Pro CS4:
- You don’t have to render video you import just to play (correct me if I’m wrong, but in FCE you HAVE to render every time you make an edit just to play back)
- There’s a built in browser that allows you to drag and drop files from the browser into the timeline easily.
- When you set up a new project, a wizard setup allows you to set all your settings – very easily.
- Got a nicer user interface (in many ways, in others not so much)
- Audio tracks for left and right stereo mix are compressed into just one track, not two – saves space.
Not so good about CS4, stuff that I can do in FCE:
- In my experience FCE has run a lot smoother on my MacBook Pro, but maybe thats just me.
- [Although I know you can easily download more…] There are more filters and effects loaded into Final Cut Express
- Simple layout in FCE – 4 windows clearly visible. CS4 is a bit confusing to the new user.
- More motion controls for each clip in FCE
And there’s bound to be more reasons as to which is better/worse/etc. This is just me noticing some quick things a few days into use.
So, my general opinion: If you’ve got a PC, Adobe Premiere has got to be the way to go – really great and powerful video editor. For Mac users, where Final Cut is an option, I’d say go for Final Cut Express – it is cheaper, which is handy, but is also a very good way to get learning in video editing. That said, Adobe Premiere is also very nice, and you can get a
free trail to try it out and compare (like I have).
Moggy
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