Jul 20 2009

Microsoft retail stores… too little too late?

Source: Apple Insider

Since Apple’s first retail store way back when opened they have been a huge success for the company. It seems that no matter what Apple does someone else in the industry tries to do the same thing after and tries to make it better.

Microsoft is now planning on opening retail stores right beside that of Apple’s. Now, it may be just me but is that not a really bad idea on the side of Microsoft? I mean with Apple’s retail stores being on the cutting edge of technology and “all about the consumer”, how is it possible that a company that focuses on profit margin going to be able to compete with that?

I mean sure they have some cool products they COULD show off in the Microsoft retail stores such as Microsoft surface and potentially promote their robotics devision, both of which have yet to be seen from Apple, but really can they compete with each and every store or will it be another advertising flop just like most of their latest commercials?

Cheers


Jul 19 2009

Welcome to code perspective

So since the site is very well nearing completion after a couple months in the development stages, I would like to officially welcome you to my first website. Code perspective is a blog/ personal portfolio on software, IT, the industry and everything in between. Hopefully there will be some tutorials that will help you out or just some facts you find amusing, either way welcome and see you again soon!

Cheers


Jul 10 2009

Mac OS X Hint : Burning an Iso Image to a DVD

If you’ve ever downloaded a linux distro in the form of an ISO disc image, you may be wondering how to burn it to a DVD in order to make it bootable. So here are the steps for burning an ISO disc image to a DVD. All you need to get started is a blank DVD, and a linux distro ISO image.

1. Insert the blank disc into your mac. When it pops up asking how you want to open it, choose finder.
2. Open Disc Utility(Macintosh HD > Applications > Utilities > Disk Utility), and you should see the dvd on the left hand menu bar.
3. Choose File > Open Disk Image and you should see the mounted disk image on the left hand menu bar below the dvd you inserted.
4. Click on the ISO file(not the mounted drive) and then click burn at the top left corner of the disk utility window.
5. Follow the onscreen instructions and choose the options you want to burn the disc with.
6. Click “Burn”

That’s it, the disc should start burning and eject on it’s own unless otherwise specified. It’s slightly hidden but pretty straight forward once you know where to go.

Cheers


Jul 3 2009

13 must have apps for Mac OS X developers

1. Apple Developer Tools – These are just a no-brainer here. There is a huge arsenal of apps that come standard with every mac that absolutely EVERY developer that is developing for mac os x needs. Xcode, Dashcode, Instruments, Interface Builder, etc. There are a ton more to check out if you haven’t already, and all of them will considerably ease your development experience on OS X.

2. Eclipse- Eclipse is the ideal application for java development on Mac OS X. With the amount of features that eclipse offers, it’s almost impossible to skip this application if you do any level of java development. The “intellisense” that eclipse includes while you’re coding is unprecedented.

3. Photoshop/ Gimp – This is a must have for any type of website development/interface development. Whether it’s doing website mockups or drawing new buttons for your application, this is a must have.

4. Coda – I can’t speak enough good things about coda. This application has exceeded my expectations in every way possible. Whether it’s through the handy “sites” feature, or connecting to a server using the built in console, this is by far the best web development app for Mac OS X. Well worth the 100 bucks!

5.uTorrent – A very simple torrent application. Extremely easy to use and very efficient. Having the ability to select which files you want to download and which you don’t is a huge bonus.

6. Adium – A very powerful messenger application for Mac OS X. From IRC plugins, to customizing the look and feel, Adium can pretty much do it all.

7. Jing – This screen capture application hides almost out of sight in your menu bar but packs some powerful features. Jing has the ability to capture screen casts of your applications in action as well as screen shots. Great App!

8. QT Creator – From the designer’s of the famous UI toolkit QT comes their first IDE. QT Creator is a fantastic IDE for developing QT Apps. From the WYSIWYG editor to the syntax editor, great app all around.

9. Prism – Pretty cool new(ish) app from Mozilla. This application allows you to capture sites like gmail and make them into a desktop application so you don’t have to open a browser every time you want to say check your email.

10. iStat Menu’s – This light-weight app will allow you to truly track your applications performance and see if you potentially have a memory leak in your app. Has a separate monitor for each CPU to allow the user to see what’s going on in each CPU at any given time. A must have even for non-developers.

11. XMind – This extremely powerful mind-mapping tool is great for those pre-alpha stages of development. Getting as many ideas down as quick as possible is extremely easy for this application to handle. The application is based on the eclipse platform and is very solid.

12. Virtual Box – This open source application is great for testing applications in numerous environments. Test run your apps on Linux, Windows, BSD and more.

13. VmWare Fusion – This is a must have for all developers but especially for those doing web development with coda. Allows you to run windows applications natively on Mac OS X. Another great app for testing in multiple environments as well.

Cheers