Brad Haynes / Blog

My iPod Touch apps, originally uploaded by LondonBrad.
 

Whilst I was considering it a protest until the BBC launches a Mac version of their iPlayer, I’d held on long enough and really wanted to see what the experience was like.

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After many months (on and off) of testing, reading, deliberating, scratching my head and waiting I’m finally happy that I’ve found the perfect settings for encoding video with Handbrake for playback on my Mac and AppleTV.

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It’s time for a list of independent software that I can’t do without on my Mac. It will mean more to some than others, so forgive the slightly technical slant to some of the choices.

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Reading a very interesting blog posting about the demise of Flash, I was left with the question: Is Flash really in demise? I also wanted to add my thoughts as to why it should be.

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Windows Genuine Advantage programme does have some slightly unintended advantages when it comes to non-Microsoft browser proliferation.

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I took the plunge and coughed up £200 for Apple’s Aperture application because the combination of iPhoto and Photoshop really just isn’t a useable option for a keen amateur photographer like myself who shoots more than a handful of images at a time.

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Creates great images and is better for managing sets of Raw digital images than Photoshop™, but totally lacks a useable user interface. I don’t think I’ve found a more unintuitive piece of software on OS X before, and yes that even include the rather dire Microsoft Office suite of applications.

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Whilst doing some cross-browser testing, I fired-up Internet Explorer 5 for the mac (yes, it would be totally retarded to actually want to use this browser) and was seriously amused to see this messge as it downloaded the default msn.com homepage:

“Why does MSN look like this?
…If you are using Internet Explorer for Mac, we recommend that you use another browser to have an optimal experience on MSN.”

Microsoft default msn.com homepage

Let’s hope this means they aren’t going to write another crappy browser for the mac.

This week I have mostly been drinking Old Bob. Don’t mistake this for some sort of dodgy pass-time, it’s simply a bloody fantastic real ale. Brewed by Ridley’s of Essex, I’ve yet to find a better pint in a London pub. Sadly Ridley’s has just been sold to Greene King, so the beer is bound to take a drop in quality if they decide to brew it in the sugar-beet hell that is Bury St. Edmunds. I’m thinking of joining CAMRA and growing a beard so I can blend with real ale aficionados – I already have a battered corduroy suit jacket, so the look will almost be complete.

I saw ‘40 year old virgin‘ at the cinema which I’m going to have to recommend. It could have been really fucking awful, but it’s not. I cared about the characters and it even had me laughing, which is rare lately.

I finally got around to working out how to copy DVDs onto my mac – not as simple as it sounds as you’ll know if you’ve ever tried. I won’t go into great detail as I’m sure it’s not legit, but I want to keep the movie’s I’ve bought on my computer. I’m not really sure why copying ripping CDs onto my iPod is okay, but copying a movie from a DVD isn’t? Anyway, Mac The Ripper works a treat for extracting the DVD content, removing the region code and macrovision protection. FFmpegX (after a fidly installation) will encode your VOB files into just about anything you want, and for any device. I’ve been going for the H.264 format as at 1/10th compression with very little loss in quality it’s a minor miracle. Sadly, I need a bit more oomph in processing power than my powerBook can muster as currently the average DVD encoding process is taking about 8 hours.