Snow Leopard JapanPhoto taken yesterday at the Sapporo Bic Camera.
The next Mac OSX OS Snow Leopard is out and looks like it will be the first time I make a complete fresh installation instead of just transferring my home folder again. My home folder has been the sam...
MacBook AirIf you are following the Mac scene, you will already know that Steve Jobs yesterday announced the worlds thinnest notebook - the MacBook Air.
If you have time, watch Steve's keynote speech. Highly entertaining and amusing. Even if you are not in...
Mac OS X LeopardAnnounced the other day was the release date of the new OS for the Mac - Mac OS X Leopard on October 26 2007.
From having a look at the 300+ new features, I cant see too much stuff that makes me go fwoarh apart from the Stacks feature.
There...
Apple KeyboardA quick look at the new wafer thin apple keyboard and how its helped me organize my workspace a bit better.
Been waiting ages for a decent keyboard to come out for the mac. Never did get used to the previous bulky one.
iPod TouchUpdate: Video by <a href="http://www.japanprobe.com/?p=2671" target="_blank">James</a> just added to the end of the post.
For those who don't follow the <a href="http://www.tuaw.com/" target="_blank">Apple scene</a> and think that this is an <a hre...
Apple JapanThe new iMacs are out but I'm more interested in the other stuff that Steve announced in his Keynote.
For a start, I love the new wireless keyboard. Need to test it out in the store before I buy but its the right size and looks great. Another...
iPhoneThe iPhone. Not Japan related (yet) but definitely otaku related - especially when you get a bigger screen to look at your ero images during that important lecture or when your CEO is running up n down shouting "I love this company!"...(MS)
Not...
Mac LifeA few of you asked how Mac life was lately. Been using my MacBook Pro since last Nov and cant believe how fast it is compared to my previous PowerBook. Ran into a few annoyances when moving my data over from the PowerBook - mainly permissions and a f...
PHP, JS, Cookies n CacheJust for those who asked for it – the old flash header is back. Sorry to keep have kept you waiting - you can click on the "Display old header" in the subnav on the top page (top index page only for now) to switch and save the old flash header. When...
Multiple Ajax RequestsWhen I introduced the polls to the site, I only knew of one method to do it and that was to use iFrames but I am glad to say that I've finally been able to do the polls using Ajax - but not without *many* sleepless nights...
So that you dont have to...
Pagerank RedirectGoogle Pagerank is an important factor when it comes down to making money on the net. In general, the higher your Pagerank, the higher your results will show up in Google which usually leads to more traffic.
One of the factors that influences Pag...
Mac Software Update & PHPAfter the last Software Update ( it could have been a security update - I forget ) for my powerbook, I had problems connecting to MYSQL and couldn't perform anymore GD functions on localhost. Using phpinfo() to see what on earth was going on I saw......
ChronosyncAfter getting another powerbook at work, I was in a bit of a dilemma - I wanted the same working environment at home and at work. I looked into dot mac but could not find anything about security or what type of encryption is used to store my keychain...
ThunderbirdThunderbird was my mail client of choice on a Windows machine and I was disappointed with the OSX version - crashes at every possible opportunity just like Firefox - what a load of steaming crap.
Its probably a good thing anyway because I want to us...
PHP GD MYSQL Apache<style type="text/css"><!--.style1 {color: #0000FF}.style2 {color: #000000}--></style>So I read most of the "penultimate-tutorial-to-installing-php-mysql-apache-gd-on-tiger" and you know what? They just don't work - most of those tutorials being abou...
Bathyscaphe2ch (pronounced Ni Channeru) is Japans largest and most successful bulletin board which covers topics from unemployment to gardening to Akibakei - Japanese geek stuff - Otaku and what have you.
Normally, one would go to <a href="http://www.2ch.net">...
AcqliteNow a lot of switchers are probably wondering about p2p - what to use? Well emule and Acqlite are the best that I have tried and I have been able to get hold of a ton of open source stuff like knoppix easily (clears throat).
Many switchers will come...
Transmit<a href="http://software.visicommedia.com/en/products/aceftpfreeware/">AceFTP</a> served me well on Windows for a few years and I was happy to find an FTP client just as good on OSX - Transmit. Transmit comes with a ton of features that I have not ev...
Adium<a href="http://www.miranda-im.org/" target="_blank">Miranda</a> was the open source IM app that I used on a Windows machine - the great thing about it was that it enabled chat on AIM, Yahoo, MSN, ICQ and was lightweight - and more importantly - free...
NetNewsWireSeems like I was spending too much time doing the entrepreneurial stuff and managed to live without an RSS reader for god knows how long - but now that I am using an RSS reader - I wonder how the hell have I been able to survive up until now...
NetN...
FirefoxHere is the cant-live-with, cant-live-without app. Firefox on Windows was great - Firefox (as of 1.06) on OSX can be a pile of steaming cack. It is just so damn slow throwing up the spinning wheel of death every other page. One of the reasons why it...
Smultron<a href="http://www.editplus.com/">EditPlus</a> was the text editor that I used on Windows and unfortunately I still have not been able to find the penultimate equivalent on a Mac - I have tried BBedit, Hyperedit, Textmate, SubEthaEdit, Jedit etc etc...
CocoThumbXWell let me sum up this application in one word - fandoodletastic. Finder does a bad bad job of caching thumbnails and when viewing a folder full of images, you will find yourself waiting a decade for Finder to generate thumbnails. But for some reaso...
PhotoGridPaintshop Pro was the image management tool that I used pretty much from day one on Windows - the thumbnailing management was great and it actually sharpens images much more accurately than anything I have tried so far on a Mac.
PhotoGrid does a bad...
Remote Desktop Connection Client for MacThis has to be one of the best pieces of software that Microsoft has released - it was great in Windows and is great-ish on OSX. I say great-ish because the RDC for Mac can only login to one Windows machine at a time.
StreamRipper<a href="http://streamripper.sourceforge.net/">Streamripper</a> was what I used in Windows as a Winamp plugin to rip open source radio stations (is there such thing?) and was glad to find that Streamripper is also available for OSX.
HexEditorIf you need to poke around the insides of applications for some reason or another - then look no further than HexEditor - it allows you to do that poking and best of all - its fwee ;-)
MacTheRipperThere comes the time when you need to watch some of your DVD's on that long flight BUT you don't want to have to lug around a ton of DVD's - well you don't have to - just rip the VOB files onto your HD instead.
If anybody cant use this software then...
CaptureWhy pay for crap screenshot capturing software when you can have a cool one for free? Capture by Vanilla is another one of those cant-live-without apps which lives on the Dashboard. Capture has been recently updated so that you can save as any one of...
Swift3DSwift3D is the tool that I used to create the swirling hexagon animation that you see here and there on the site. While the abilities of Swift3D are cool, the UI has remained constantly crap on Windows and OSX - just see for yourself in the screensho...
Sorenson SqueezeSorenson Squeeze is what I had been using on Windows to create the <a href="http://www.dannychoo.com/video_clips/eng/">video clips</a> on the site. The SQZ save files from the Windows version do not open properly on the Mac version and what you will...
DoubleTakeI was never able to find decent panoramic stitching software on a Windows machine so you can imagine how surprised I was to find something much more than decent on a Mac - DoubleTake is absolutely fantabulastic. As you can see from the screenshot - I...
CocoaMYSQL<a href="http://www.mysql.com/products/mysqlcc/">Mysql Control Center</a> was the tool that I used on Windows to manage my MSQL DB's but it had a Major drawback - as with most things running on Windows - it had no support for UTF-8. CocoaMYSQL is one...
Renamer4MacRenamer4Mac is the file renaming tool that seems to work the best for me so far - I used <a href="http://www.vector.co.jp/soft/win95/util/se217399.html">Namery</a> when I was on Windows which does have more features though... Never the less, Renamer4...
File MergeOn Windows, I used a tool called <a href="http://www.araxis.com/merge/">Araxis merge</a> to merge and compare files. Unfortunately I have not been able to find anything as good on OSX but found something which just about does the job. Hidden within y...
