Code In Zen

Google Talks - this is awesome!

Tags: Google, Videos

Yesterday I received my new 24″ iMac. I can only say one thing - OMFG! This is an amazing piece of machinery - an amazing piece of computing art.

One thing for sure, Apple certainly put a lot of effort into design. Looking at the computer you certainly don’t think that its something that you can use - its looks like more of a decoration than a computer.

Amazingly, the iMac is a very usable piece of machinery. Usually something this good looking isn’t so easy to use I’m tempted to add a comment here that some readers may find offensive so I’ll restrain myself When you unpack the iMac it take about 3 minutes to set up the cables and plug it in. Once you plug it in and an turn it on you’re ready to go - put you  name in take a photo on the iSight camera and that’s it. Like the Wordpress setupup, you think that there is more to do. Unfortunately that’s it - you’re ready to use your new toy.

This computer is ideal for those that like to have an uncluttered workspace or someone that has minimal room for a powerful machine.  The screen and  everything else is in the same box - only the keyboard and mouse are separate. As you can see below, there is plenty of room an my desk.

Something else that I totally adore on the new iMac’s is the ‘Superdrive’ - it’s in the side of the screen. This is awesome!

Apart from my raving review, there are some flaws with the iMac, albeit ‘minor’ ones:

• Power Button: The power button is located behind the monitor. This is a little awkward. I like to press things that I can see. I know that you should sleep a Mac rather that turn of off or shut it down, but I like to turn things off.
• Mouse Cable: The mouse connects to side of the keyboard. When you unpack the mouse, the cable looks a little like a dogs breakfast (see picture above).
• USB Ports: There are only 3 USB ports. C’mon Apple, surely you can chuck another couple of ports in!
• Monitor Adjustment: The crystal clear monitor can only tilt backwards and forwards. I think that a vertical adjustment would be beneficial for some users.

Apart from some of my minor nuisances, this is a beautiful machine. Well done Apple!

Tags: apple, iMac

This is so cool!

Checkout the theme in full swing here.

Tags: wordpress, blogging, themes

I downloaded Flock last night and promptly removed it from my machine after I found how slow it was.

Well well, this morning whilst catching up with some blog post, I came across this at the Cult of Mac blog. It seems that I didn’t download the beta but a stable version that ran like a pig. I remember trying flock out on Windows when everyone was raving about it. It was just too slow for me, so it was removed from my machine very quickly.

Essentially Flock is Firefox with all these little social network goodies for Facebook, Flickr, de.licio.us and other things built into it. This post is being written in Flock’s built-in blog editor which doesn’t seem too bad.

If you’re a Firefox and Facebook user, you will love Flock. All Firefox settings and bookmarks are imported seamlessly. It feels the same as Firefox but sometime the interface seems a little cluttered. I think that with a little tweaking I could change this.

I might try Flock out for a while. Who knows, I might be pleasantly surprised.

Tags: flock, browser, blogging, social software

Just a reminder for myself, when my desktop blogging client doesn’t work add the following to the .htaccess:

<Files xmlrpc.php>
SecFilterInheritance Off
</Files>

Courtesy of this link. Hopefully .htaccess wont reset itself again - grrrr.

Tags: Blogging, Wordpress

After over a year in hiatus, I’m happy to announce that I have re-launched my beloved web site, Code In Zen!

This site has gone through several incarnations over the years. I plan, in good time, to import the blogger and .TEXT posts. Code In Zen now runs on Word Press.

Over the years, my writings have mainly been technical in nature mostly relating to .NET. But things have changed and I wont be focusing entirely on .NET anymore. I don’t really do much .NET programming these days. I still manage really talented .NET programmers, but the majority of my professional time is now taken up in management. I still code in my spare time. I’ve been learning Ruby and Ruby on Rails. I thought that to keep myself interested I would code something different to what I’ve been doing over the years - it keeps it interesting I think. The PC’s have also gone and now I do my stuff at home on a Macintosh. It doesn’t mean I don’t love Windows and .NET anymore, it was time for a change.

Hope to see you around.

JV