Microsoft makes SkyDrive available for Mac OS X and iDevices 

Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the download link. The default storage is 7GB, but while I was poking around the settings at live.com, it offered me a free upgrade to 25GB.

The Macalope recently trashed an eWeek article by Don Reisinger called Ditch Microsoft Windows In Favor of Mac OS X Lion: 10 Reasons Why. Since the article is so poor, I thought I’d write my own list, taken from over two-and-a-half decades of experience with computers, so here are …

10 Real Reasons to Switch to a Mac from Windows.

1. If you have an iPhone or iPad, you get an ecosystem that keeps all your critical things in sync easily.

Not to say that you can’t do this with Android, Google or 3rd party software, but Apple simply makes it too easy and adds music, apps photos as well, all wirelessly, via iCloud.

2. The hardware is excellent.

People may say “But it is just the same hardware in any other PC in a fancy case.” but do PC makers buy up all of a particular kind of laser just to drill microscopic holes in the case for a single light to indicate the camera is on? Can you find an Ultrabook as good as the MacBook air that doesn’t have serious compromises? Even if we’re not talking computers, just look how popular the iPhone 3GS is, still! Not only that, but …

3. The hardware will last you 5 years.

Try getting parts for your HP or Dell in a few years. Good luck. Try getting up-to-date drivers for a PC notebook too. Good luck! With a Mac, you’ll be able to install the latest version of the operating system for at least 5 years, because, not only does Apple control both the hardware and software, but they have …

4. System software that is straight-forward.

No serial numbers, no activation. If you buy Mac OS X you can install it on all the computers you own and Apple doesn’t check. Un-intalling most apps simply means dragging them to the trash, as uninstallers aren’t needed. Even if you install, say, an internet plug-in, the files installed will all have meaningful names and you can easily uninstall most system add-ons by dragging their files to the trash. Even if you do buy a new Mac …

5. You can upgrade to a new computer or re-install the system and be up-and running quickly and easily.

You can re-install without wiping your critical data and all your apps will still work. Even if you erase the disk or are starting from a new machine, you have a number of options to import from an older Machine or hard disk via the Migration assistant. You do back up, don’t you? Regardless, on a Mac …

6. Time Machine will look after you.

Because not only does the system ask you if you want to use a disk for Time Machine, those backups can be used to migrate everything to a new install or Machine. You can be somewhat selective about what you want to import too. Of course, if you accidentally nuke an important file or files, you’ll be thankful you had hourly, daily or weekly backups, automatically taken care of in the background.

For iPhone or iPad users, backup is now done to iCloud as well, whenever you plug into the power, so you don’t have to worry about it.

7. Safety and security.

When you do need to re-install, it is usually because of a hardware upgrade of some kind. Rarely is it because of system problems, let alone malware, all of which definitively requires, like all programs, user permission to run.

8. You don’t get a computer not bogged down with OEM rubbish.

How often have you seen a brand-new PC loaded up by the manufacturer with loads of crap that you’ll almost certainly never use.  Then, even if you do put on a fresh copy of Windows, you don’t have much useful software, unlike Apple computers, which come with …

9. Most, if not all the software you need from the start.

With iLife and iWork free, you can do most of what you need to do right off the bat. Even if you do want or need mores software, you can get ..

10. Software that doesn’t suck.

Sure there is a huge ton of software for Windows, but how much of it doesn’t suck? Ever hunted for good software and had to bear bizzare and ugly user interfaces and ended up trashing the program anyway? This isn’t a problem in the Apple world, as if someone writes sucky software, because the user base is smaller, it doesn’t sell. Not to mention, with Apple’s App Store, all software is approved by Apple, so you know you’re not going to end up with rubbish, but instead, there are many apps out there written by people who love Apple and are deeply dedicated to designing the best software possible. Also, now that the iPhone and iPad have pushed software prices right down, even excellent software is quite cheap. Since use software is 100% of what you do with the machine, through the hardware, this is the most important thing.

The following article is one I wrote for Head-Fi.org.

There seems to have been an explosion lately in “audiophile” music players for Mac OS X lately. Though iTunes wiped out the need for competition when it was introduced, it has become a huge, multimedia and store program, leaving many people wanting something simpler.  For a while, that was Play and one or two others, but then Amarra came on the scene. Offering higher-quality playback, it has become famous among audiophiles, alongside its biggest competitor, Pure Vinyl (and now Pure Music).  As those two have fought it out in the commercial arena, the developer of Play came up with a free program, AyreWave, in conjunction with Ayre, which combined the simplicity of Play with high-quality 64-bit playback. This now leads the pack of the free players (after the association was dropped and the program re-named Decibel) if you want a simpler program and potentially better sound than you get using iTunes.

Many people feel that using the audiophile-oriented music players improves the sound with their equipment. At the very least, they offer features not available in iTunes, such as upsampling and access to the audio filters built into Mac OS X. The latter is especially useful as Mac OS X has a built-in 31-band equalizer which is very handy for learning about frequency response. However their main advantages over iTunes for improving the quality of the computer’s output is a dedicated playback engine different to the one in Mac OS X or iTunes, as well as the ability to switch the system output to the sample rate of the track being played, which is important if you have a mix of high-resolution as well as CD quality music and wish to have bit-perfect output every time. Additionally, they can entirely take over the output device (“hog mode”) giving the program exclusive access which prevents system beeps and other programs interfering with music playback.

So for the curious, here is a list of the players currently available that I know of, along with some basic information about them.

Amarra by Sonic Studio

http://www.sonicstudio.com/amarra/

Commercial, demo available for download.

Comes in three flavours: Amarra, Amarra Mini and Amarra Junior with varying features and prices. The player integrates with iTunes, or can be used stand-alone importing tracks into a playlist with one click from the Finder or iTunes. For people with a lot of RAM in their computer, it can be used in cache mode where the files are loaded into memory before playback. Includes iZotope resampling software. However, the licence either requires an iLok USB key or the software is locked to a single computer which can’t be transferred.

audirvana (Open Source)
Free

http://code.google.com/p/audirvana/

The first player to offer a window that looks like a piece of hi-fi gear, it offers device “hog mode” and up-sampling by default. The feature list is otherwise very basic at present.

Clementine Player

http://code.google.com/p/clementine-player/

Free (Open Source based on Amarok 1.4)

This multi-platform player is more of a music organiser than anything, with features geared in that direction (such as having LastFM support), rather than having any audiophile settings.  Thankfully, unlike other multi-platform applications, it isn’t Java based (using Qt instead), so the user interface is fast.

Decibel by Steven F Booth

http://sbooth.org/Decibel/

Free.

The developer of Play produced a basic, high-quality music player known as AyreWave in conjunction with Ayre. This has now dropped any association with them and has been renamed Decibel.  The software itself, while basic, allows one-click importing from files selected in the Finder or iTunes, “hog mode” and, best of all, is free.

Ecoute by PixiApps

http://www.pixiapps.com/ecoute/

Comercial

With iTunes integration, including song rating and metadata support, this is the player for people who want a slick, theme-able one-window interface and want to share your listening habits on Twitter, Facebook or LastFM.  It also supports the Apple remote control.

Fidelia by Audiophile Engineering

http://audiofile-engineering.com/fidelia/

Commercial (price as yet not known), demo avilable for download.

With a main window that looks like a piece of high-end hi-fi gear, but far more classy than that of audirvana, it has the ability to play music directly from iTunes playlists without needing to have iTunes running. Also included are a selection of on-the-fly resampling methods, including iZotope and remote control software for the iPhone and iPod Touch available in the App Store.

Play by Steven F Booth

http://sbooth.org/Play

Free.

Until recently, almost the only alternative to iTunes if you wanted a simple music player and nothing else. Allows access to the built-in Mac OS X audio effects filters, which can be very handy if you want a 31-band equaliser, high-pass filter or the like.  Since all this is incorporated into Decibel it is probably more worth it to download that instead.

Pure Music by Channel D

http://www.channld.com/puremusic/index.html

Commercial, demo available for download.

Based upon Pure Vinyl and using its own playback engine, like Amarra, integrates with iTunes, running in a window alongside and can re-sample music on the fly. Unlike Amarra, it requires iTunes to be running to select tracks, but offers a considerable slew of other options.

Songbird

http://www.getsongbird.com/

Free.

More a multi-platform internet connected media library project by previous Firefox, Netscape and Winamp developers, it might be easier to consider Songbird to music what Thunderbird is to email, yet a lot more, with online integration.

Vox by Alessio Nonni

http://www.voxapp.uni.cc/
Free (donations requested).

Much the same as Play, a slowly developed app that does little more than just play music with a minimal footprint. Like Play, it gives access to in-built Mac OS X audio effects filters.

Hey, I didn’t call Sculley a business genius, you can thank Del Yocam for formalising & restructuring Apple into an efficient and accountable world-class company. And it was Mike Spindler who was responsible for the split personality product lines that caused more confusion than anything else. Gassee was charismatic driving force that refined the Mac line, as well as coming up with the original idea to keep prices high. Co-founder Mike Markkula admired Sculley’s vision, but deplored his lack of direction, so Sculley had to go. Unfortunately, his choice of replacement — Spindler — wasn’t any better, and in some ways much worse. It wasn’t uncommon to find Spindler curled up in a ball under his desk with a panic attack due to stress. Gil Amelio was just Markkula’s yes-man, the only right thing he did was over-ride the Board and choose Jobs and NeXT over Gassee’s BeOS and then piss off to the park with his platinum handshake.

Jobs did revitalise Apple, but not because of OSX, nor his recruitment of Jon Ive as lead designer. He did the right thing by killing the clones, but the wrong thing in completely closing down the ATG. Apart from his uncanny eye for (as lavo put it) finding an idea and tweaking it, Jobs’ first and foremost skill is purchasing. No matter who had the components he wanted, he could swing the most incredible deals and get pricing and supply contracts that were the envy of Silicon Valley. His first baby, the original iMac, despite its record low price, had a post-production margin higher than any other computer in Apple’s history.

A visionary isn’t going to be able to cut corners, find something that catches the eye of the general public in the fastest way possible, and then produce the goods for the lowest cost possible. No, for that you need a ruthless, utter bastard who is prepared to exploit any opportunity, who wields dictatorial power over the corporate entity as if it were his own personal feifdom with his hand in every pie and eye watching over every shoulder. And the Board let him get away with it because the money started flowing back in hand over fist, with revenue flows not seen since the early part of the Jobs / Sculley / Gassee golden years, when Apple could do no wrong.

Jobs holds all the cards now, and he may have had a vision of bringing the graphical interface to the masses, but he was never ever a visionary.

“Brains” on the return of Jobs to Apple.

Why is this not a surprise?  Wouldn’t have something to do with there being no Flash on the iPhone or iPad?

[T]he latest publication of HTML5 is now blocked by Adobe, via an objection that has still not been made public (despite yesterday’s promise to make it so).

via: Hixie’s Natural Log: Consistency.

Adobe also claimed 7 million attempts to download Flash from iphones. According to Marc Edwards, that’s way less than the hits he got on Bjango’s web site since the iPhone was released.  Adobe should be putting their efforts into making Flash good software rather than trying fight alternatives.  Apple wouldn’t have been choosing alternatives if Flash wasn’t rubbish on Mac OS X.  Not surprisingly though, Adobe are working on Flash for Windows Mobile 7. Not sure what good that’ll be with Windows Mobile use dropping like a stone.

Edit: According to John Nack at Adobe, the claim that they are blocking HTML 5 is bullshit. This doesn’t negate that Adobe spin a load of crap themselves though.  The most ironic thing is that John Nack says he is working to ensure that HTML 5 isn’t hijacked by vendor interests, yet Adobe wants to be dominant with Flash and can’t handle the truth when someone like Steve Jobs calls them lazy.  They made their own bed and now they must sleep in it.