SCO0050 - Parallels Offer

Ok, So I never did a special ScreenCastsOnline offer on Parallels when I did the original screencast and you all gone out and bought a copy. Ah well, if you didn't and you want to get a 37.5% discount you can use this affiliate link or click on the image above. Better late than never! Parallels Desktop for Mac is powerful desktop virtualization solution that empowers IT professionals with the ability to develop, test and deploy in multiple operating systems on a single Intel-based Mac. A sophisticated virtual machine engine supports nearly every standard x86-based operating system, including the entire Windows family, multiple Linux distributions, OS/2, MS-DOS and FreeBSD, each of which can be launched and utilized in completely networked, fully portable, totally independent virtual containers. Since guest operating systems are self-contained and directly access hardware profiles, users never need to proactively partition hard drives allocate system resources, or continually reboot the host operating system. Check out the original screencast from this page

technorati tags:parallels, screencast, screencastsonline, discount

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Microsoft's iPod Killer

MacDailyNews | Photo of Microsoft’s ‘iPod killer?’

Bring it on :-) When will people learn, it's not just the device, it's the whole package - store, software, infrastructure, coolness, simplicity, design, ease of use....... And if they take the same amount of care over this device as they did with the selection of the DVD drive in the Xbox 360 (That MF sounds like a fully laden freight train going over loose rails ) then I don't think Mr Jobs will be loosing any sleep.

The only problem with Microsoft is they just have no taste, they have absolutely no taste, and what that means is, and I don't mean that in a small way, I mean that in a big way.

Steve Jobs - Watch Video

technorati tags:jobs, ipodkiller, microsoft

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Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" early developer-release build reports are in

Mac OS Rumors site has a three page report on some of the features in Leopard, allegedly from some early developer-release builds. On the whole it looks fairly plausible and may give a good indication of what's to come!

On the average multicore Intel Mac, you can expect Leopard to simply feel -- as Steve Jobs has often said -- an "All New Mac". We're talking about 100%+ performance boosts in many benchmarks that are dependent on compiler optimization, GPU acceleration, efficient use of multiple CPUs and high-bandwidth motherboards, etc.....and 40, 50, 70, 80% boosts in many others.

Mac OS Rumors :: The Original Mac Rumor Site.

Looks like even PowerPC users might be OK!

For one thing, we can say right up front that Leopard is noticeably snappier across the board than Tiger....even on the oldest system that supports it, a PowerMac G3 Blue and White or Powerbook G3 "Pismo" (both with built-in FireWire which will still be Leopard's basic requirement, essentially the same as Tiger). And on typical systems owned by Mac users today, in between the G3 and the Core Duo, the advantage is very substantial. On single-processor/single-core systems, you can expect to see a gain of about 25% overall when working with the user interface, and 12-20% performance boosts on many common system functions which nearly all applications access, like Core Graphics, Quartz Extreme, Aqua, AudioAL, et cetera. Significant changes to the Carbon libraries will help those applications take advantage of most of these advances but Cocoa apps are much more likely to get the full boost.

Mac OS Rumors :: The Original Mac Rumor Site.

The bit (!) about Bittorrent support looks a little flaky though

When it comes to the system-level "BitTorrent"-style bandwidth sharing system, we know it is indeed a very real project at Apple and will eventually be part of a package that comes with Mac OS X Server in the Leopard or post-Leopard era. It will allow large organizations to pool bandwidth at multiple locations for single purposes, like high-demand global media downloads or popular files, distributing Software Updates across their enterprise or to external customers/employees/partners and so forth.

Mac OS Rumors :: The Original Mac Rumor Site.

We shall soon see!

technorati tags:leopard, osx, mac, wwdc

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Encoding Woes

Spent all day (Tuesday 11/7) recording and editing this weeks screencast, Really pleased with the result. Fired up Batch Processing in FCP to encode the 4 versions of the show in various resolutions. It's a really neat way to finish off the process and a bit of a time saver. All completed without error so kicked off CyberDuck to upload to Libsyn. Another time consuming process as my upload speed sucks! Have you tried to upload a 130MB file? File transfer finished, kick off feeder to create the feeds. Libsyn doesn't show the transferred files on the media page but I can see them via FTP. Ah well! Kick off Rapidweaver to create the site post... All hunkydory.... Publish the feeds, publish the site... Test the free version on the site and notice that the opening titles are screwed up..DAMM View the HD and ED versions and their titles are screwed as well......ARGHHHH The rest of the file seems OK so I pulled the Free Version from the feed and am re-encoding. It's got another 2 hours to go and it's 12:50am. I think it will need to wait until the morning. Such is the life of an independant media creator :-( Update: Well it's the following morning and wouldn't you believe it but the 2nd run is also screwed. Time for some further investigation! Further Update: It's now 1pm the following afternoon (12/7) and it's still not sorted :-( It takes two hours to encode a single episode and I'm on my 3rd attempt. Rather than encode from within FCP I've exported the episode as a full quality QT file and am using QT Pro to encode. Will know if it's worked in an hour or so, then upload again, then redo the feed. Yet Another Update: Glad to say that the free version is re-encoded (finally) and has been posted to the feed.

technorati tags:screencastsonline, encoding, FCP, screencast

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