Exciting Broadband Connection

Let me test something here real quick: speedtest.net We take speed for granted and that it’s getting faster and faster by the month. This here is the upload and download we’re getting at work in 2012 (and over the last few years). This isn’t even possible with my home “g” WiFi. In a few years …

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How to replace the hard drive in my MacBook with a Crucial Solid State Drive

After a year of becoming a Mac user I’ve taken stock: it was a very good decision, but just like PCs, even Macs are getting slower the more stuff you put on.

I remember my Mac was extremely fast to boot up when it was new, but now that I’ve installed man heavy Adobe apps and a lot of other stuff it’s taking its time. Nothing I couldn’t live with, but something that could certainly be improved upon.

So I thought to myself: how about one of those Solid State Drives? I wonder how much they are, remembering that this time last year a 512GB SSD would set me back a hefty £1k. As techie prices drop all the time, now it’s just under £300 plus VAT – excellent!

Scouting out some recommendations and how-to’s on the internet, I found the entire thing an extremely simple process. Let me show you how I did it and how it’s improved the speed of my Mac for the better.

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Percolated Purple Holga

I was showing Dave how the Percolator App on his new iPad works. This came out rather by accident, I love it. Thanks, Percolator 😉

Paper gets support for PDF export and DropBox integration

This morning my beloved iPad app Paper by FiftyThree received a long awaited update: they’ve just added an option to export an entire book as PDF. Hurray! This turns an extremely good doodling app into a solid professional graphics tool.

Now I can share an entire book rather than a single sketch either via email or to any iPad app that supports the “Open In” option. This means that there’s no limit on what other apps can receive your work: DropBox, iBooks, EverNote. Rather than Paper dealing with each API, Paper lets the iPad deal with all that techie stuff. Genius!

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Photoshop CS5 Default Brushes

Sometimes it’s nice to come back to the very basics of how Photoshop came when you’ve first installed it. Sadly the Reset Brushes command doesn’t always work so I’ve decided to upload the default brush set right here. Simply unzip the following file, choose Replace Brushes and and load it in: Download Photoshop CS5 Default …

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New Logo for 2012

Due to a fluke my logo disappeared from this site. I think it happened because I upgraded a plugin which inserted it via a HTML statement – sadly this plugin now has more functionality, however lost my logo in the upgrade process. It’s amazing how organized I am with other people’s work, but my own …

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Blue Bush

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On my way to work I discovered this extremely blue bush on Devonshire Road – it looks amazing with a bit of sunshine on it. I never knew plants could be so blue.

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Premiere Pro CS6: the Sneek Peek they’ve shown us at NAB

I’ve seen a couple of demos on the upcoming Premiere Pro CS6 which will become available in a few months. You may recall my earlier post about a hands-on experience with Premiere Pro CS 5.5 so I’m eager to see what else the team have improved.

Not having tried the product myself yet (since that’s impossible) I can however give you a quick opinion on what I’ve seen demonstrated at NAB 2012 at Adobe’s stand.

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Adobe: Watch out for our Creative Cloud Announcement on Monday

When I visited Adobe at this year’s NAB in Vegas only a couple of days ago I enjoyed a couple of great demos about the upcoming features in Premiere Pro CS6.

But what I really wanted to know was: when will Adobe Creative Cloud be launched and how much will it be?

Sadly that information was not available, but I was told that all my questions and more may be answered this coming Monday, 23rd of April…

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How exciting: I’ve just written a Web Browser for the iPad!

Today you find me rather speechless: because I’m sitting here with my iPad which is running a web browser that I’ve just written in Xcode!

As in “written myself, working and doing what I’m expecting it to do”. I’m in SHOCK!

This is seriously cool – and it didn’t take long either. Let me tell you how this happened, how it works and even share the code with you.

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Dear Amazon Kindle Support

Today Amazon have released a new version of their Kindle for iOS App (3.0.1). This must be a direct response to some feedback I have sent over after the last update (3.0 for Retina and Amazon Cloud Integration). The previous update didn’t show new content after I had purchased it.

I love my Kindle, and I love my content. And I love the Kindle App on all my other devices: I can read on anything I happen to have with me: Kindle, iPad, iPhone, Laptop. That rocks!

Here’s a slightly annoying email thread I had with Amazon’s low level support who clearly didn’t understand the issue I was bringing up – from one developer to another.

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First Impressions: I bought a New iPad on launch day

I was being a bit of a fan boy yesterday when I bought two new iPads in the Apple Store on Lincoln Road. We’ve even joined the live event via Twit when the announcement of the new gadget was made last week.

So now I’ve got an iPad with razor sharp Retina Display, an improved camera, 4G LTE and a bunch of other stuff. Let me tell you all about my first day with The New iPad.

I’ll pay close attention to the new camera features and compare them to the iPad 2 and the iPhone 4S.

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How to use an iPhone 4S on AT&T GoPhone

I’ve recently bought an iPhone 4S in the UK, knowing that I’ll mainly be using it on my AT&T GoPhone prepay plan while I’m in the US.

A quick web search on if and how this is possible showed various reports of varying clarity – so I thought I’d set the record straight and tell you that

  1. it WORKS, and
  2. you don’t need a jailbroken iPhone
  3. you WILL be able to use 3G data

Let me show how it all works.

There is an updated version of this article here.

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Apple gave me a brand new iPad today – NICE!

I’ve been witness to Apple’s amazing customer service today: My iPad had a minor screen problem, I bought it in a different country and didn’t have my receipt with me – and they’ve replaced it with a brand new one!

Cudos to all those involved and the mastermind behind creating a customer experience that’s second to none.

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Cocktails and Dinners

We had breakfast at The Eleventh Street Diner and sat net to this neon sign. It’s on even during the Day and the congrats intrigued me. Shot on Hipstamatic using Kodot Xgrizzled and MattyALN lens. Here’s the shot with a normal camera:

The Sky over Kissimmee

I shot this just before the sun was setting. Hipstamatic has this feature where you shake the iPhone and it’ll randomise the lens / film combination – this was one such occasion. Luckily it remembers said settings for later retrieval. In this case it used the John S lens with Pistil film.