New mac:about Podcast now live!

Me, Saul Kropman, Gary Meyer and Marc Forrest decided to start up a Apple orientated podcast catering for South Africa. This week we take a look at locally developed iPhone apps, buying a new Mac, the relevancy of the Mac mini and Apple TV in South Africa as well as a few hints and tips for your Mac. We hope you enjoy it, and look forward to hearing your comments and suggestions.

 You can listen to it here,or you can subscribe to it in iTunes here.

Some of the tips and tricks we speak about in this episode is RadioPod, Perian, easy removal of icons in menu bar, a great free virtual machine software package called Virtual Box and the best iPhone Apps of the week.

- mac:about Team.

At last: Google Maps directions in South Africa

At last Google Maps has gained the ability to provide directions in South Africa! This small but very significant feature was always missing for South African maps. A while back I wrote that hopefully the 2010 World Cup will bring this functionality soon enough, and thankfully here it is now. It is currently available on the Google Maps website, but also on mobile platforms like the iPhone and Android. Here you can see it in action on my iPhone. The interface is simple enough, and the guidelines are clear, turn by turn. No voice navigation though, but its still great. It integrates neatly with your contact’s addresses as well.

Of course the website is even more powerful – here is a screenshot:

PS: To my overseas readers, sorry that I get so giddy about something so small. We South Africans are not used to it yet – we had to rely on dedicated GPS devices or expensive add on software to get this functionality.

Review: Doberman Laptop Defender and Briefcase Alarm

Every now and then I come across one or other gadget that I cannot help but wonder why they are not more popular. Many people living in SA have developed an almost paranoid like sense of their surroundings which is frankly very stressful. Therefore we invest in expensive home security systems, constantly locking up everything around us which has become entrenched in our lives. In fact, it is kind of difficult to believe the stories like “when I was young we left the key in the car…” etc.

I decided to test out Doberman’s computer focused alarms which are very handy for paranoid people like me. The Laptop Defender attaches onto your laptop lid by adhesive, and then you activate them to start sensing sudden movements (like someone snatching your computer). You set up your own security code and simply press ARM and then your alarm is armed. Easy enough. A blinking light warns you that it is armed, and also moving the notebook will cause the alarm to quickly warn you with a loud beep. I think the Laptop defender is ideal for people who often use their computers in public places – for example, if you frequent airport lounges often, it now enables you to leave your laptop at your table to go get a snack. If someone snatches your laptop, a piercing alarm goes off which will of course attract attention. It seems like the Laptop Defender works better on a solid surface like a table. I tried to use it while the laptop was on my lap, but I got a warning after a while. While it is sensitive, it would not go off just by someone typing on the machine for example.

The Laptop Defender charges with USB – I have no idea how long the battery lasts, but I have used it quite often in the last few weeks and so far the battery is still fine.

The product that impressed me more was the Briefcase Alarm, which works in a similiar manner, but simply attaches to your briefcase. As someone who really appreciates the looks of my Macbook, I do not necessarily want to stick something to the lid of the machine, I will prefer to attach it to my briefcase. (Your opinion might differ. Cannot think the laptop alarm will spoil the utilitarian looks of a Thinkpad for example.) The Briefcase alarm works in the exact same way by getting armed with a code. Again, if you move the briefcase, it will warn you – loudly. Move it again, and it goes off. Loudly. VERY loudly.

In the manual they warn you that the alarm can create hearing damage – I would say that is a valid concern. In testing I let it go off in my office – my ears sang (is that the right term?) for the next few minutes. It will definitely attract a lot of attention if someone is running with this alarm going off…

Both of these products seem to be built very sturdily, and the Briefcase Alarm actually looks pretty decent as well with a leather finish loop which attaches to your bag. If you are someone who travels a lot or uses their laptop in public often, it is indeed a very good buy, especially at the price.

The Laptop Defender is currently going for around R350 and the Briefcase alarm for about R250.

Take Note Apple: Please do this for next iPhone update

Even though I think iPhone has the best user interface of any smartphone out there (although Android comes close), it really needs to rethink its home/idle screens. If there is one thing I dont think is great, is that the iPhone does not use a today screen which can easily show relevant up to the minute info on the homescreen. I do not want to unlock, and then check each app just to see what is up. While I am not fond of the Nokia N97 widget interface, I do like the idea that teehan+lax came up with. Apple please take note:

iPhone OS 4.0 maybe?

PS: As @henre has pointed out, this is pretty close to the Windows Mobile today screen. Agreed.

Storage recovery must have: Paragon Rescue Kit

Recently a Lenovo netbook I use had a sudden hard drive failure, and the drive was not properly backed up. The drive would still spin up, but I could not get it to boot up into Windows. So what to do?

So next I opened up the netbook and removed the SATA hard drive inside. From there I plugged it into a USB to SATA interface (you can use any external SATA enclosure as well). When I connected the hard drive Windows refused to open the filesystem simply telling me that the drive is corrupt. So then I had to somehow get a method of opening the filesystem (the drive was physically damaged after all).

So after looking around for a decent file system recovery application I came to a realisation – most file system repair software on the internet is total and utter crap. All of them basically do the same thing, yet most of them insist on using malware type practices that keep nagging you when you finally install the software.

Luckily I came accross Paragon Rescue Kit Express. It is completely free (no strings attached) and the software simply burns itself onto a bootable CD. You will of course need more than one drive to copy all the recovered data on. Once you boot up the disc, a simple interface just requests which files you wish to recover, and then it effortlessly goes about its business. I recovered the entire hard drive with any issues whatsover.

To all the other companies who use unethical methods to get me to buy your software (for example, fooling me by saying the software is free when it is not, and then badgering me once it is installed), shame on you.

After all of this effort I decided it was time to switch the netbook to Windows 7 – good move. Read further about that here.

PS: No, no one payed me to talk about Paragon – their software solution was simply the only proper application I could find, and thus I recommend it wholeheartedly. Also thanks to Craig Nicholson for the tip.

How to easily install Windows 7 on a Netbook: WintoFlash

Yesterday my Lenovo S10e harddrive became corrupted for some strange reason, which gave me a chance to to finally install Windows 7 on it – I am done with Windows XP. Anybody who helps out friends and family with computer issues will tell you these days the computers that seem to get all the virusses, malware, corrupted disks, etc are all on that little OS we call Windows XP. Say what you want about Windows Vista, XP is where the real problem lies.

While its nothing new to install Windows 7 on a netbook, the process of installing Windows without an optical drive is quite a process up to now. Typically a user had to use the command prompt and go through a long process of making the flash disk bootable as a pseudo DVD.

WintoFlash luckily comes to the rescue – and the process could not be easier. Download the app and run it. From there choose the optical disc you want to transfer to the flash disk (You obviously need something roomy, like a 4GB+ size) and WintoFlash does the rest. It formats and makes the flash disk bootable and transfers all the setup files.

WintoFlash is also handy should you need to install Windows on to a lot of machines – installs go much, much quicker than from a DVD. It also works with a variety of Windows versions, not only 7.

So far I am very, very happy with Windows 7 on the Lenovo netbook. It is a standard s10e model but with 2Gig RAM. Performance is snappy enough, and so far I cannot see how people will stick to Windows XP once 7 is out, even if they run netbooks. Only small issue is that the 1024×600 somehow feels more cramped with the wider new taskbar, so I had to set it to autohide.

Highly recommended. (Download WintoFlash here)

New mobile Apps that caught my attention

This past two weeks I came across two applications on iPhone which really impressed me in terms of their concept. The first is Waze, which is basically a crowd sourced mapping service that is built on open source software. The basic idea is that instead of using expensive map distributors like Garmin or Navteq, users can build maps themselves just by running the Waze application on their phone. When many Waze users ride a similiar route, naturally it will mean that a road exists in that area. Users can then go onto the Waze site and edit roads that they have driven on.

Once these roads are built, Waze tracks users of the service in real time, and these users can contribute to the service in the form of reporting cops, speed camera, slow traffic etc. Despite Waze saying that it is a worldwide service, they clearly are US focussed at the moment. Hopefully that will change soon enough. The service is also available on a variety of mobile platforms including Windows Mobile, Symbian and Android as well. The idea is brilliant, lets hope it pays off.

The other new app I came across is Cyclopedia, which is augmented reality app that relies on geotagged Wikipedia posts. The application relies on the iPhone 3GS’s GPS and compass, and then impose Wikipedia posts over your current camera image. The concept is once again brilliant, but it relies on the services (read: number of geotagged posts around you) in order to be effective. The user can set the radius of posts around him/her which should be displayed. So far I have found it quite effective, especially when going to new places and trying to find your bearing and find interesting things around you. The app is however very buggy and crashes often, but an update is probably on the way.

So what exactly is Google Wave?

In the past few days the blogosphere has been going on about Google Wave like its the best thing since sliced bread. Google yesterday made 100 000 invites available for people who signed up early (seems I was not early enough) and now a few people can start playing around with this revolutionary concept. If you are still asking what is Google Wave, here is a nice short video to explain it all: (please excuse the dudespeak)

Google Wave is pretty hard to conceptualize if you have not watched the video. I will try to explain it in Google marketing speak:

A wave is equal parts conversation and document. People can communicate and work together with richly formatted text, photos, videos, maps, and more.


A wave is shared. Any participant can reply anywhere in the message, edit the content and add participants at any point in the process. Then playback lets anyone rewind the wave to see who said what and when.


A wave is live. With live transmission as you type, participants on a wave can have faster conversations, see edits and interact with extensions in real-time.

Basically Google Wave in its most simplest form is a combination of email, instant messaging and wikis. You have an inbox which recieves “waves”, and you can reply to them in real time. These waves remain private, but you can easily add users from your contacts on the left. Now these new users can try to follow the conversation (which can contain multimedia elements) by reading through it, or they can replay the conversation in the order it was created.

One can only imagine how this would contribute to collaborative software – no more setting up difficult meetings and messing with network settings. Wave will also have an open API which can enable developers to quickly add more functionality to its rich media features.

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