I heard about Pixelmator a few weeks back on the MacBreak weekly podcast but at that time it was a closed beta. But now they’ve launched (apparently) the first GPU powered image editor for the Mac - boy it looks nice and certainly for us none Photoshop powerusers more than capable - plus at a mere $59 definitely worth checking out!
After Sean learnt something earlier this week it was my turn. After playing around for the first time with the Eclipse CF Wizards I was looking at some of the code it generated in particular the CFCs. In some of the gateways i saw stuff like returntype=”myapp.somebean[]” - I’d never seen this syntax before and had always used a returntype of array but turns out i’ve been missing a treat for returning an array of objects of a certain type!
In keeping with their current ‘Cloud Computing’ offerings Google have now added the ability to create presentations within Google Docs. This now completes their suite of Word Processing, Spreadsheets and Presentations.
Like their Word Processor it is by no means as feature rich as a desktop alternative although for most it will suffice. It lets you upload existing PPT files, present online and comes with 18 selectable themes. I’m using Google Apps on my own domain and the security in that means you can only present to users on your domain at the moment - the presentation screen runs full screen with a prescene/chat panel on the right hand side. Presentations can be shared just like normal docs and accessed with a normal Google account - here’s one i created earlier. This could be a pretty useful way of sharing presentations in the future.
As expected Steve Jobs just announced the iPhone landing in the UK, available from 9 November on the o2 network. Phone will start at £269 on 18 month contracts ranging from £35 to £55 with unlimited (subject to fair use) data. No changes on the spec of the phone, so no 3G. A wifi deal has been struck with ‘The Cloud’ providing 7000+ free wifi hot spots - nothing about Starbucks announced just yet.
Note to self - when using xmlsearch() to search xml packets (in this case the response of using http://maps.google.com/maps/geo) which is returned with a namespace defined as;
the xmlsearch() would need to include a colon (:),eg
Omitting the colon returns no results when a search is performed. It’s not a CF bug as Steve Erat points out.
I completely forgot to blog on Monday that i received my iMac - despite feverously watching the online tracking (which made no indication that it was due that day) and even a phone call to TNT to say that it was in the depot about 5 minutes from where i work and ask when could i expect it - only to be told that it had arrived early and that it wasn’t scheduled for delivery that day……ONLY THEN for me to get back to the office after lunch with an email from reception to say there was a box arrived for me!
Anyhow, it looks great - in the store they look good, on your own desk at home they look even better. It’s the 20″ model (no sign of a blackening screen as some reports are saying) - I bought it with 1gb of RAM and bought another 1gb seperately (Apple were charging £90 for 1gb whilst i bought it for £25!!). I have one of the old style keyboards on a Mac Mini at work but i much prefer the new one - i use a laptop keyboard all day so the new design keyboard is pretty similar to using that.
After a quick IM with Sean C I installed a raft of his suggested software. I’m now solely using Google Apps so i don’t need any word processor/spreadsheet stuff but i’ll keep the trial of iWork ‘08 for the time being if i need it but it will probably be uninstalled. I’m using Spanning Sync to synchronise my Google Calendar(s) with iCal which works great. VMware Fusion flys along but the one piece of Windows Software I need to run - an RC Helicopter Simulator doesn’t run under a VM so it was time to install Boot Camp and Vista. That’s a pretty polished install, make the driver disk, partition the existing volume and install Windows…I ended up doing it twice (reverting to a single partition) because I stupidly made it 15gb in size and only ended up with 4gb of space after installing Windows!!! Vista looks really great on it, once the drivers were installed and a new performance analysis run Aero was enabled….but i’m still looking forward to Leopard!
All in all it’s been great - i’ve moved my iTunes library over to it, I did have some initial frustrations - like the equivalent of the HOME/END keys but i’ve figured that out now using the COMMAND and left/right arrows. COMMAND+Q to close an application as the X in the top bar doesn’t do that???? So why when i click X does the icon in the dock still have an arrow underneath it??? The minus obviously minimises it as it goes to the right of the doc but what is the X doing as it starts a new session when you click on the icon again….? The only thing now i need to know is how to switch users fast? Am i stuck with logging out and letting my other half log in? Can we switch without having to shut down all our apps? Surely I’m missing something…
As you may know Steve Fossett disappeared in a light aircraft September 3rd in Nevada - the first man to fly round the world without refuelling and also in a hot air balloon. If you’ve got Google Earth install you can help find him using recent hi resolution photos of the area. More instruction here
It’s a question that seems to pop up all the time and whilst i don’t work for Adobe I thought i’d put a post up here on it for prosperity as i’ve answered it enough times - so Adobe, if i’ve got it wrong please feel free to update me!
Prior to the recent CF8 release - CF had a very simple licensing model - a CF license (Standard or Enterprise) covered you for 2 PHYSICAL CPUs. Back then virtualisation was pretty new and hadn’t need to be addressed in the EULAs so many hosting providers (HostmySite, cfmxhosting) had offerings for ‘Virtual Private Servers’ where they’d host usually a maximum of 4 virtual servers on 1 piece of physical hardware and get away with using a single CF Standard license
Enter CF8 and all change. Firstly the CF8 license is available to view here. The changes are pretty key, starting with section 1.10a. It’s the normal legal mumbo jumbo but the upshot is that each Virtual Machine is now deemed to be 2 CPUs and your required license count is the number of VMs (running CF obviously) installed multipled by 2 PLUS the number of PHYSICAL processors in the box. So, 2 VMs running running on a dual proc box would require 2 x 2 + 2 = 6 CPUs to license so you’d need to buy 3 CF licenses. NOTE: Don’t forget that Dual Core procs are still one physical CPU so dual core duos (effectively 4 CPUs) is still 2 physical CPUs.
If you’ve got deep pockets then, you’ll be glad to know that the Enterprise version (section 3.1 in the EULA) says that the number of VMs is irrelevant and that licensing is solely based on the number of physical CPUs.
Now i had started writing a rant on the whole VM licensing and that hosting companies will simply ditch offering it under this new license but i can’t be bothered to start the discussion as it will be pretty fruitless.
I wasn’t able to weed out a trip to Barcelona for Adobe Max in October but i have managed to get registered to go to the ‘Future of Web Applications’ conference here in London at the beginning of October - it looks like it should be a great conference with some high profile industry experts…more here
Yep, that’s right - it’s moving, in fact it left Shanghai yesterday by TNT International Express, yet it’s still scheduled for delivery on the 12th September - which ain’t ‘Express’ to me!!! Fortunately I’m not in any particular rush!!!
UPDATE (7 Sept): It’s in Europe!! Arnhem to be exact!
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