I’ve just downloaded Safari 5 - perhaps a bit prematurely but I was curious. One bug that was plaguing my web browsing experience in Safari 4 was that the mouse pointer would not change back to its normal state after it was dragged off one of those annoying flash banners (you know.. the ones that invite you to shoot at stuff and turn your cursor into a target reticle). Bloody annoying - to get it back I’d have to drag the cursor off the page and click back in it. Safari 5 did not cure said bug.

So I decided to finally check out clicktoflash. Click to flash is a plugin that purports to stop loading flash items on a page till required. It hasn’t been updated in time to say its compatible with Safari 5 but it seemed to work fine for me.

Safari isn’t renowned for its extensibility and that’s probably due to its lack of a plugin api system such as the one used by firefox for example. Therefore 3rd parties have had to rely on less than straightforward means to extend safari such as developing their own plugin architectures such as simbl. This, however though useful, tends to break when apple updates the browser.

So Click to Flash’s installation was a doddle. Once installed and active, the plugin greys out the area that would’ve been occupied by the flash movie. A little widge appears on each instance which allows you to select from a few options including allowing the individual flash movie to load or all those on the page. Very quick and useful.

It also has some cool features that show it’s a mature product - namely a managed whitelist for sites you wish to allow flash (useful for those of us who have to check out “cool” flash website for a living). I’ve already reaped the benefits as it has cured those flash pointer probs. Another benefit I found - Click to Flash seems to have disabled those really annoying ads that move the whole content of a page down rather than the ad popping above the content (I’m looking at you italian sports paper websites!).

Other benefits include the option to force youtube to play its videoclips through h.264 rather than flash. Most if not all of the vids on youtube have been converted by google so as to be viewed on iOS devices. Unfortunately this was a feature that never made to desktops. From what I can tell, the flash player on the Mac is a major resource hog and one of the biggest causes for system slow down. I’m guessing the h.264 codec and the quicktime plugin will ease the burden.

I won’t go into the pros and cons of flash cos well I’ve made a living thanks to flash and it can be put to great use - I’ll leave it to the Steve Jobs and the Adobes of this world to duke it out but one thing is for sure, since the arrival of technologies such as the scriptaculous javascript libraries and other javascript frameworks, a lot of the cool stuff we were forced to use flash for can be executed without. Whereas before I’d propose a hybrid html / flash site, I’d not propose a pure html site because I know I now have the tools available that would let clients still get excited… Should apple integrate this functionality into Safari? Not sure but it would be nice to have as an option.

Anyways if you wish to claw back the web for yourself rather than be forced to get out of bed at 1 am because of a flash ad deciding to play loud music by itself… download click to flash now (ps. it’s donationware so you can download and use for free).

After about 6-7 years in the same job i finally had a fun job… a quick video ad to promote a strip club. Unfortunately there was no casting sessions etc as it’s all stock footage… It was all done in Apple Motion and was the first time I ever managed to use chroma keying (knocking out a background aka blue/green screening).

I love using my macs - I have them at work, I have 3 at home.. I’ve had macs since the colour iMacs were released (mine was a blueberry one). It’s not that I ever particularly loved macs. I’m not a mac fanboy as people think me to be. I am however, a Microsoft hater. Their software is crap. From their OS to their Office suite… Since my other choices such as Linux or the long forgotten Amiga are really no-gos. I’ve had to make do with the Mac. Don’t get me wrong - OS X is great - it’s many times better than the MS world. It’s not without it’s flaws but that’s to be expected. However there are a couple of things MS have that I’d like to see in OS X.

Firstly is a finder that allows me to properly filter files by any meta data I should choose. On a PC I can list the files in list mode and sort them in many, many ways even for example by pixel size. The mac version of this feature is more limited.

Another thing that Vista has is UPNP DLNA support built in. What’s that? Short answer, it lets you turn your computer into an industry standard media streaming server which allows other devices to stream from it. For example, I like to play my content from my mac on my big screen TV using my PS3. To add this functionality I used a 3rd party piece of software called EyeConnect. there are others available such as Twonky media or Playback. Windows (or some versions) come with this functionality built in. Besides being able to stream from Windows Media player (from my understanding), DLNA shares on the network show up in the networks places area in Windows.

Apple’s solution is all based on their iTunes software and ecosystem. Since there isn’t an iTunes media store here then that’s a no go. Besides which there are other limitations. Apple would like you to by an Apple TV to play their media on the big screen. This has not proven to be very successful… Apple should know better than to release a single function device these days (what worked for the iPod once does not hold true today with consumers’ expectations of multifunction devices like the iPhone and iPod touch. I expect the Apple TV to develop into a fully web enabled games console one day… but I digress.

Since the derby half time! That match really took it out of me. Little did we know it would only get worse (e.g. Inter v Sampdoria) The referees int heir attempt to prove that they aren’t favouring the stronger side seem to be trying their best to damage inter or plain irritate. I don’t mind a referee that applies the rules in a strict fashion - but there are too many matches where that is going in one direction.

This year seems to be the year of things needing to get fixed - my car’s door needs attention aherm. So does my guitar - the neck pickup’s connection to the pickup selector switch appears loose though the whole pickup has always sat loosely compared to the other two.. Unfortunately I have no idea about wiring sound or guitars… Still pretty happy with the guitar though - The middle pickup gets the most work.. must resist the temptation to buy a new guitar this year.

On the computer front I’ve been fixing my dad’s mac mini. First he had a log in loop basically after logging in it fails to loads the desktop and throws you back to the login screen. For the first time ever I had to use single user mode to delete some caches. That seemed to do the trick the following weekend he turns up with the machine refusing to boot into the os. Seems he disconnected the mac whilst it was doing some updates. Ouch. I tried several solutions but nothing worked this time not even single user mode nor disk warrior. Ironically the bootcamp partition worked flawlessly. I managed to connect the mac mini to my macbook using a firewire cable and putting the mac mini in target mode. That’s a genius system, which allows one mac to become another’s bitch external hard drive. I managed to salvage a lot of files though the copying was timing out leading to my fear that though I solved the problem with a reinstall, the problem might reoccur as it seems to be a hard drive hardware issue. We will see.

Some exciting developments have taken place over the past couple of months in Malta when it comes to acquiring a new Mac. Whereas previously we had the monolithic BDS, then bought out by Gasan who merged it with another company to form SG Solutions being the only supplier of Macs and Apple products on the island, now we have Klikk becoming the second officially recognised retail partner.

SG have in the past tried to have their Macs sold through a network of local retailers but let’s say it wasn’t an inspired move. Also, in a move which surely has irked Klikk, Scan have started selling Macs too. However, there is no literature to indicate they are an official Mac distributor and where they source their stock from. Training staff for after sales is something very important and it’s all part of the renowned Mac experience, abroad at least! But one thing is for certain, wherever Scan are getting their Macs from (options are SG solutions or parallel importing), they sure know how to compete on price.

There was a time not too long ago where pricing a Mac Pro vis a vis the US price showed a rediculous price difference of some Lm300 - that’s almost €700 or the price of a flight to NYC. OK, it’s never fair to compare local prices with the US, comparisons with EU prices were still not at all favourable. When the Euro was introduced here comparisons were even easier. However, Mac prices were still quite more expensive. Now, thanks to Klikk and Scan competing with prices for all to see on their respective websites, I have finally seen a Mac with the identical sticker price as in another EU country.

Here’s the pricing of a Mac Book Pro:
SG Solutions €POA
Klikk €1,819.00
Scan  €1,799.00
Apple.com Ireland online store - €1,799.00

So there you have it - and the pricing follows similar patterns with Klikk’s prices between a few euro more expensive than Ireland and Scan’s being more or less the same. However, Klikk has more models in stock and more accessories. Both didn’t have Mac Pro pricing on their sites but right now I’d have to sell a kidney or two to afford one at the moment. They are an official partner so warranties and after sales should be better, hopefully time will tell. One very annoying thing about Klikk however, is that their site is almost completely unusable on Safari.

This morning I visited three retailers in the search of a 20″ + lcd monitor to use with my macbook. My requirements were simple - it had to be over 20″ and under €250. Most 24″ - 26″ were out of my budget, I was therefore left with models between 20″ and 24″. I’m handing my g5 + 20″ apple ADC equipped lcd to my sister, so monitor size was a definite issue. I’m used to working on large displays - at work I have 2×19″ displays side by side and my ideal system would prolly be 2 x 26″ displays.

Now when I said my requirements were simple… I lied! I’m a geek and a designer, a monitor is extremely important to me. I didn’t want to buy online because I wanted to see it in person and I want to return it if I find a single dead pixel! My other main requirements were again simple - it had to be branded and it had to have a DVI connector. I was perhaps given about 6 models from the 3 retailers which matched all my requirements. All but one - they lacked DVI! One display attendant at Scan tried to convince me that all new monitors don’t even bother to include DVI and that there wasn’t any difference. Well in the past I’ve seen the difference and guess what… my macbook adaptor is DV fucking I. I have a VGA one too but that’s for my TV.

And why should new LCDs be equipped only with VGA 15pin D-sub connectors? It’s symptomatic of how the PC industry hangs on to legacy ports. Apple admittedly goes to the other extreme, killing off legacy ports completely and abruptly… But on my G5 which is 5 years old I have a DVI out and an ADC, on my 2 year Mac Pro at work I have 2 X dvis. Now I bought a PCIX graphics card for a work PC and it had three connectors - one DVI, one HDMI and lo and behold… a VGA connector.  Grow up PC world - cut out PS2, serial and VGA. It’s a wonder we have any advancements. Don’t get me wrong legacy connectors can be very useful but there is legacy and then there is antique. The only monitor I came across that matched my needs was some OEM brand and it was quite ugly to be honest. My mistake was not taking my laptop with me to ask for a proper test. The in shop multi monitor adaptor didn’t do any of the displays justice.

So I had to order online like I’ve done for my modems and hard drives. Let’s hope well.