Blu-Ray

“What???” I hear you ask… Well, those of you who have so far not heard of the latest thing in high capacity portable disk storage. If it works as well as claimed, its going to replace CDs and DVDs as the current storage medium of choice.

From the Blu-Ray website:

Blu-ray, also known as Blu-ray Disc (BD) is the name of a next-generation optical disc format jointly developed by the Blu-ray Disc Association (BDA), a group of the world’s leading consumer electronics, personal computer and media manufacturers (including Apple, Dell, Hitachi, HP, JVC, LG, Mitsubishi, Panasonic, Pioneer, Philips, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, TDK and Thomson). The format was developed to enable recording, rewriting and playback of high-definition video (HD), as well as storing large amounts of data. A single-layer Blu-ray Disc can hold 25GB, which can be used to record over 2 hours of HDTV or more than 13 hours of standard-definition TV. There are also dual-layer versions of the discs that can hold 50GB.

I currently have an external drive which is a Maxtor Onetouch 200G Firewire… but to be able to have high capacity disks of a theoretically infinite number (think massive floppies) and the drive to read them… well… its all good!

Pineapple News Reader

I have been on the lookout for a decent newsreader ever since I came to OSX. I had been used to Agent in Windows, and Pineapple in BeOS. I had tried Unison, Thoth (now dead), Xnntp, Maxnews, Thunderbird, and even Entourage. I also tried some of the older multi-window readers. I was comfortable with none of them.

So you might imagine my delight tonight, when I found that Allen Brunson had created an OSX version of his BeOS newsreader. I quickly downloaded, and then dug deep for my old registration keys (It’s been just over 2 years and a couple of computers later) Even more delight… my old BeOS registration key works just fine for the OSX version. I shot a quick thanks off to Allen and am now in the process of downloading my favourite groups.

Pineapple works just as well as an online or offline reader, you can set global preferences, or prefs for each individual group, if you want the bodies as well as headers downloaded. I have set headers only because thats how I like to work (I really do not want some of the dross one sees on usenet). When the trial period runs out, the newsreader doesn’t cease to function, there are some features which won’t continue to work, such as binary decoding. There are others, I just don’t recall what they are right now. However, no shutdown and no nags. You either register or you don’t.

For those who have not yet found their ideal reader, Pineapple is most certainly worth a look. Its a standard OSX interface, using the 3 pane GUI, which I prefer, and its fast. Always a plus.

Do yourself a favour and check it out.

Simply Budgets for Mac

I have mentioned Simply Budgets before and have a page devoted entirely to it, because I have an affiliate account with them. This is because I have been using Simply Budgets for about 3 years now, and love it.

However, I do find it a pain in the ass not to have an OSX version of it available to me, because it means I have to run Virtual PC, which I would not otherwise bother with, because its as slow as a wet week on my eMac.

David Wright is now asking for people who are interested in a Mac version to submit their details on the website and says that if there is sufficient interest, he will contract a Mac programmer right away.

I’d love to have a native MacOSX version, there is NOTHING like this program in OSX-land and I really want it.

So how about it, OSX users… go submit your details to David and lets get a Mac version on the horizon.