Apple iPad released
by Mats Hellman on 27.Jan, 2010 under Apple
Just watched Twit.tv live from Apples event. I knew long before the event I would not be exited about the tablet and I’m still not convinced of the success for the iPad. I can’t see where this thing fits in the market. The price is ranging from USD 499 to USD 829. It’s nearly as expensive as a MacBook or a MacBook Pro 13″.
Apple seems to think it will revolutionize press and save newspapers and the book industry. I have my doubts here. As a long time computer user I still PRINT every document that’s longer than 10 pages I have to or want to read. The screen just isn’t as good for reading as paper. Books wont do well on a iPad for me as I do most my reading in bed where a book is far better than an tablet.
It will however be a great device to watch a movie on while on a train or for taking notes in a meeting. But and this is a big but, if I already have a laptop why would I put out the extra money for the tablet.
It still doesn’t do flash, and like it or not flash is something we have to support today. It’s also as restricted as the iPhone and that’s to bad. I would have liked to see more OSX and less iPhone OS in this device. I like to be able to at least change some settings on my devices.
On the positive side it is able to run all the iPhone’s applications so even before the release it has over 140 000 applications and that’s great. Still I don’t see the value of this device if you already have a laptop and a smartphone. Some think it would be great for users reading email and browsing the web but most of them will want to store their pictures locally and do some editing on the pictures. The 800USD version has 64Gb space so it might be usable for this but then cough up a little bit more and you can have a Apple laptop, go for PC:s and you’ll get one much cheaper. The 500USD version has 16Gb so that’s just to small for any real use and to pay 500USD for a book reader, well that’s to much.
Before I pass any final judgment I will go take a look at it when it hit’s the stores in Finland I’ll give it a fair chance even if my first impressions weren’t that great.
MAMP hang after OSX unclean shutdown
by Mats Hellman on 26.Nov, 2009 under Apple, Mac OSX
Today we had a power outage and after a few hours when power finally came back on I tried to get my development tools up again, everything was fine except for MAMP. It seems MAMP isn’t able to delete it’s PID files after something like this so it just flashed and shut down. This is because it thinks it’s already running even if it’s not.
Anyway, MAMP uses it’s own Application folder to store the pid files and the fix for this is really simple. Open your terminal and
iMac:~ rm httpd.pid
iMac:~ cd /Applications/MAMP/tmp/mysql
iMac:~ rm mysql.pid
After deleting the PID files MAMP should start just fine again.
My software picks for OS X
by Mats Hellman on 04.Nov, 2009 under Apple, Mac OSX
As some of you might know I’m not a Windows only user. I do use an iMac at home for all my design and photo work. I also love the simplicity of OS X. It does what you expect it to and it does it well. This is probably why I feel the need to post some of the software’s I as a 1+ year Apple user have found useful.
I’m sure there are plenty more out there and if you whish to ad something to my list please do so in the comments.
I also want to point out that not all of them are free. Some cost, but as most programs for OS X they cost under 100 USD so it’s really not a big deal. The list is in no particular order.
Safe web
by Mats Hellman on 04.Nov, 2009 under Apple, Life, Networking
This post is a little of topic from what I usually write but for me it’s something important so I hope you forgive me. In May 2009 I became a father to a little girl who means the world to me. 
A post on the Cisco Portal blog got me thinking about security from a different point of view. Security at home. The internet has provided us with so much good. We can get information, access our bank and get news 24/7 . But it has it’s dark sides also. When I was young my parents knew that once I was home I was safe. I had my safe haven inside my parents house where no one could get to me.
The Internet with all it’s glory also opened a gateway to our homes for the predators. Following the news you read almost weekly about police shutting down large pedophile groups, and that’s a good thing. Law enforcement units are able to hunt them down using the networks. But just as the good guys use the networks to find them, the bad guys use the networks to share their sick and twisted materials.
