Big Trousers, Web, Design, Photography and new media.

HTML5 video for WordPress

Posted on 04. Jun, 2010 by Philip in Apple, Digital imaging, Video, Web design

We are currently testing HTML5 video for WordPress with a view to supporting the explosion of interest in the new iPad from Apple. So here goes…
Only works currently in Webkit browsers (Safari etc). Firefox support not yet available here but is possible.

Here is the embedded Flash version.

Apple now second most valuable Company

Posted on 27. May, 2010 by Philip in Apple

Apple shot ahead of Microsoft in market capitalisation yesterday to become the second largest company behind Exon-Mobil.
The trend continues as investors see the value long term in Apple stock given growth in the iPhone, iPad tablet business. Apple is now worth 222 Billion Dollars, Microsoft….219 Billion.

Apple iPad Australian delivery delay

Posted on 15. Apr, 2010 by Philip in Apple, Hardware

Apple has issued an advisory that iPad delivery will be delayed into Australia and all other markets due to stronger than anticipated demand in North America. While this is not good news it is not uncommon for Apple to look after it’s main market first. iPhone was released a full 12 months later here that the US market and most Mac releases have been met with supply constraints from time to time.
While we believe iPad will revolutionise the way we do business in the mobile space the delay is only minor and was in fact predicted by us all along. This means the iPad has been the runaway success we assumed and we will just have to wait.
A delay of one month should hopefully see shipment of stock to meet demand here in Australia.
Read the note from Apple here.

Keynote on auto schedule shutdown-startup

Posted on 04. Mar, 2010 by Philip in Apple, Big Trousers News, Digital imaging, Hardware, Software, Video

A very recent installation job nearly went pear shaped when a new “feature” in iWork 09 Keynote stopped us from scheduling a shutdown of a kiosk style big screen sideshow on 3 screens.

The job is a display of news and coming events on 3 big screens for The West Footscray Neighborhood House. The screens run separate keynote presentations containing HD video and slideshows all with audio in 3 different locations within the center complex. Three Mac mini’s run the program files in full HD resolution and they could not be more happy with the quality of the presentations.

There were a number of hurdles to overcome however and in the interests of others trying to achieve the same result we will list solutions to some of the problems we encountered.

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24 inch iMac runout stock

Posted on 08. Jan, 2010 by Philip in Apple

Designwise has the runout 24inch with wireless keyboard and mouse for $1699.

We know where to get a USB version keyboard and mouse MB419X/A  iMac 24 inch for $1499. That is a wopping saving given the original price for this model.

Guest Network set up with Linksys router and Airport Extreme

Posted on 25. Nov, 2009 by Philip in Apple, Hardware

The Dog Cafe in Footscray asked us to install a wireless network for their clients and a connection for their Macs so that guests were protected from sharing and the office network. Also they wished to file share amongst the office network Macs. Simple, the Apple Airport Extreme with guest network and a standard Linksys AG300 Modem router and TPG ADSL2+.

Well that proved to be an overstatement.

Whilst straight forward to understand in a network sense, not much information was available online or in the hardware documentation to sort out the relevant settings for both devices. Much of the information suggests forgetting the Airport Extreme as a DHCP device, bridging it and allowing the Modem to allocate IP addresses on the network. Whilst that is fine for most networks a guest network supplied by the Airport Extreme requires that it allocate IP addresses becoming the DHCP server for the two networks and isolating them from each other over WIFI. Simple, what about the Linksys modem? Bridge it and the PPPoE settings disappear and the Airport seems unable to to do this for the system, thus rendering the network operable but unable to connect to the internet.

The answer was stumbled upon after trying everything else that seemed logical.

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PDF Reader 2009 Update download

Posted on 14. Nov, 2009 by Philip in Apple, Software

A lot of folks are getting this email to download an update to Adobe PDF Reader.

It is Spam at least or a Trojan waiting if you click on the link.
A big tip, if you are on a Mac and do not have Windows installed then an update to a Windows application is sure to be a hoax. Also Professional Software updates for Adobe products come via the Adobe updater software and not via email. This one looks like a third party vendor trying to get you to download their version of a pdf reader.

Delete as Spam

Good news from Adobe

Posted on 31. Aug, 2009 by Philip in Apple, Digital imaging, Software

As of Monday 24 August we are lowering the price of the Student Subscription edition. For annual subscribers, the subscription will drop from $49 per month to $29 per month. And for students who subscribe on a month to month basis, the price will drop from $69 to $49.

With now up to a further 40% off Creative Suite Design Premium Student Subscription edition, it’s a great time to get students hooked into Adobe products, especially if they have been, um, borrowing a mate’s copy!

This is good news given the apparent lack of support for CS3 for its use under Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.
An upgrade to CS4 is now more affordable under this student subscription model.

MYOB frustration

Posted on 10. Jul, 2009 by Philip in Apple, Big Trousers News, Software

Due to MYOB’s current software licensing practices it is no longer possible to buy a new copy of MYOB Account Edge and upgrade your datafile unless you pay MYOB an extra $29 to remove the previous serial from your datafile. That is our current understanding at least, your experience may vary.

To do this you need to email your datafile to MYOB and sign a form with payment details included.

To avoid this procedure we recommend purchasing an upgrade to your software directly from MYOB.

Big Trousers will no longer sell MYOB software for installation on the Mac Platform as we consider this licensing model to be draconian and not one we would recommend being locked in to.

As rival software is available we will look into those alternatives.

Quickbooks has been around for a while and that may be an alternative.

Connected Precision Accounting Software may not be suitable for everyone but worth a look too.

We will continue to look for other, more Mac friendly accounting software packages and report back as they are tested.

UPDATE:

Perhaps there is a version of MoneyWorks that will prove useful and competitive?

Easy Time Machine Setup with the Netgear ReadyNAS

Posted on 16. Apr, 2009 by Philip in Apple, Big Trousers News, Hardware, Software

In a recent firmware upgrade for all Netgear ReadyNAS units a simple interface for configuring for network Time Machine backup under Mac OS X 10.5 has been revealed. Untill now only a complex 15 step solution was available for this unit.
Many had opted for the Apple Time Capsule solution for network backups.

This is great news for those with plenty of room on their ReadyNAS and a small number of Macs to backup.

To use the system simply reboot your ReadyNAS and it will have the firmware upgrade done with a page available with set up instructions.

Read more here.

Back to my Mac, working on Billion modem router

Posted on 10. Nov, 2008 by Philip in Apple, Hardware

Over the past few months of testing various models of Billion routers, updated firmware and configuration we have a working solution.
Back to my Mac is a technology in Mac OSX Leopard that allows the user to connect to every Mac they are in control of over internet connection regardless of where they are. Each computer shows in the finder as it would if sharing is enabled on computers on the same local network. Employing only Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) enabled on a Billion 5200 modem router we were able to successfully screen share and access files from outside our office network both on known and open WIFI access.

It seems that not all Billion routers have this ability regardless of the fact that UPnP is available in most of the routers we tested. The difference seems to be the ability to allow an external application to make changes to the port mapping within the router.

Back to my Mac requires a .mac or mobile@me account. All Macs you wish to access should be configured using the same account. Secure connection data is stored and configured via the connection to this service. Since we use mobile@me to access common data for address books and iCal info across all Macs and iPhones, taking advantage of Back to my Mac seemed obvious. Despite having access to other services like Hamachi and Real VNC for over the internet sharing and control we have concentrated on Back to my Mac given that it requires little user knowledge once set.

Importantly there should only be one device acting as a router and for most home and small office networks we take a look at, there are two at times both acting as a DHCP server. This is mainly due to a later inclusion of a wireless access point, a network retrofit very common these days. In the case of Back to my Mac and other more complex network access applications, one of these routers should be bridged or configured so that does not assign IP addresses for the network.
Importantly when all else fails a quick flick off and on of Back to my Mac in System Prefs is all that was required to get the 5200 working correctly. Given the fact that the Billion 5200 is a domestic grade modem we were surprised by this result and also a little disappointed. The quality of the router is not quite up to spec for our requirements generally as it is a little less than stable in a network of 5 to 10 computers, printers and phones. Generally we would advise an industrial grade Billion router for this task. It is relevant to address the fact that enabling UPnP is not advisable under some circumstances and is not encouraged by the Windows security fraternity. It may also be argued that a more advanced system be used on Macintosh networks also and indeed there is a solution.
Back to my Mac can also employ NAT-PMP, a possibly more secure method of network manipulation. None of the routers we used had this capacity however. Apple Airport devices have the ability to use this technology in a network but we were hard pressed to get any ADSL modem router we tested to bridge successfully and allow the Apple device complete control of the network.
Testing will continue with hardware available in Australia to find the best means of making Back to my Mac usable under all circumstances but in the meantime there seems to be some hope for a small investment.

Apple’s Time Machine saves the day

Posted on 28. Oct, 2008 by Philip in Apple, Hardware

Recently released backup software in Apple’s new OS 10.5 Leopard, Time Machine has been found to proove invaluable when a full restore is required.

A customer rang last week saying their MacBook Pro had been damaged in a “drinking” accident and along with screen damage the hard drive may have been rendered unbootable. Some fluid damage to the internal electronics may also have occurred. A new MacBook Pro was ordered and whilst setting up the new Mac we connected the external hard drive that contained the Time Machine back up. The client had done what we instructed and dutifully connected the back up drive every week or so in order to let Time Machine do it’s thing. It keeps a complete backup of everything, even keeps copies of deleted files.

Still unaware of the value of Time Machine when the check box appeared “set up new Mac from Time Machine archive”, the box was ticked and it ran for 45 min. It sucked back from the external drive all the users files, configurations, accounts, applications, preferences, in fact everything so that the result was a perfect copy of the Mac just as it had been prior to the accident. All applications worked and remained registered.

Not only that but Time Machine made available all files deleted going back to the beginning of time for the old Mac.

Now while a new MacBook Pro cost a reasonable amount, the additional cost saved by not losing files and time taken to rebuild amounted to a whole heap more.

It also looks like a great way to get from one model to the next when upgrading hardware. The new Mac will not only have everything appear the same but all deleted files are there as well. It also saves the hassle of that import folder in Mail. At Big Trousers we will be recommending a Time Machine backup for all Macs from now on.

WordPress iPhone app

Posted on 22. Jul, 2008 by Philip in Apple, Big Trousers News, Web design

Announced today, the WordPress application for the iPhone.
Make web additions from anywhere

Pixelmator 1.0 released

Posted on 27. Sep, 2007 by Philip in Apple, Digital imaging, Software

The great Photoshop killer Pixelmator was released on Tuesday this week and it packs a punch.
As a 20mb download for $59 US, you can experience how Photoshop should have been made or how it may look in the future. As the worlds first GPU image processor it applies filters almost instantaneously in an interface that looks like something from the future. It is almost identical in layout to Photoshop with a few interesting surprises.
Listen to us discuss pixelmator at PhotoGeek and download the trial now. Available only for Mac OS X.

New iPods… AMAZING

Posted on 06. Sep, 2007 by Philip in Apple, Hardware

Well I did not see this coming, an all new iPod range with the big surprise, an iPod Touch with iPhone like big touch screen and Wi-Fi for web browsing and iTunes for direct download.
I have ordered a few and I have no idea when they will land.

UPDATE: Looks like it could be a month or two…