Steve Jobs recently announced the creation of the iCloud, Apple's attempt to corner the Cloud space world. For those who don't know, the Cloud is a shortened reference to Cloud Computing, which means storing files on a server rather than on a harddrive (such as the one found in a desktop, a laptop, or a phone). As a result, you can access files anywhere you have access to a network connection.
Apple previously had MobileMe, but as good as it sounds, the server was pretty weak. I did have a MobileMe account (and still do), but the inconsistent syncs and the abundance of offline time frustrated me, so I left. Now, I use Dropbox! Dropbox is free for the first 2 GB, and I highly recommend it! You are alotted 2 GB of space on Dropbox's server under your specific account, and your Dropbox folder can be accessed from anywhere you have wireless (or even 3G if you have it on your phone). Okay, enough with the Dropbox plug. Where was I...
Oh yeah! The Cloud! Apple promises to allow for easy syncing. (There have been too many times I've wondered which way the auto syncing goes and out of paranoia set things to manual sync...I hope Apple addresses this issue). Subscribers will be able to access all their documents and media files (music, TV, movies, etc.) through Apple's server. With all the files in the cloud, this means lots more harddrive space!
The Soup made a funny video about the 'potential' of the iCloud, and it's pretty entertaining. They address issues of using the iCloud to store illegally downloaded music and the 'dark side' of sharing. I can think of another potential 'problem' they didn't cover. What would prevent individuals from sharing an iTunes account and then just pooling together all your items? But, maybe that's not a real issue. What do you think about Apple's dip into Cloud Computing?
Showing posts with label (I guess) I'm a Mac Person. Show all posts
Showing posts with label (I guess) I'm a Mac Person. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
iOS: Land-a-panda
This game seems to have been made for me. It taps into my love of old-school platform Mario (see the similarities in the artwork?) and pandas.
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Virtual Arts & Crafts: Coat of Arms for Em&M
So this past week, in celebration of M + Em's Baking Reunion, I decided to make them a Baking Coat of Arms! Armed with my Mac, Microsoft Powerpoint, and a sturdy Logitech mouse, I made this after 1.5-2 hours:
A guide to the thought behind the coat of arms:
1. A spoon and whisk! These originally came up in conversation partly as a joke. I thought it'd be hilarious if M & Em crossed spoon + spatula upon greeting. Something akin to when Ted & Marshall fight with their decorative wall swords in the How I Met Your Mother episode 'The Duel'. These are part of any good baker's tool kit. I'm not a very good baker, because I don't normally use a whisk--just an old school wooden rice spatula.
2. The molecule? Sucrose! It's more commonly known as granulated white sugar. Bakers run out of sugar fast. God forbid if a baker doesn't have sugar in the pantry at baking time... ;)
3. Butter!!!! The second main ingredient of most nummy things.
4. Cinnamon--because M loves cinnamon. You can tell by reading this post, this post, this post, and (phew!) this post from Em&M's blog.
5. 'Butyro Fidimus'--Latin for 'In butter we trust.' I wanted to put 'in butter and sugar we trust' but it seems that the word for sugar didn't exist in Roman times. The word zuccarum means sugar, but it came to be a little later during Medieval times. And so because I couldn't find the word for sugar in Ecclesiastical or Classical Latin, I dropped it from Em&M's motto. Using my very rusty Latin knowledge and Google, I came up with 'butyro fidimus.' I'm open to changing the verb--I myself was not sure whether fido, fidere; confido, confidere; or credo, credere would be a more appropriate choice. Classics majors, let me know! :)
6. Blue and green--because that was M's color scheme of choice.
7. The M & Em on the spoon and whisk, respectively--think of these as virtual monograms. :)
While puttering away on my computer, I made two pretty cool discoveries:
1. You can do most of what you'd want to do in Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator in Powerpoint. True, having one of these softwares would make my life a lot easier (and my wallet a lot lighter). However, the only Adobe product that I own is Adobe Reader, the PDF viewer. And consequently, I got to have some major bonding time with Microsoft Powerpoint.
If you need a Pen tool but don't own Adobe Illustrator, just go to Powerpoint! For those who aren't familiar, the Pen tool allows users to make curved shapes by clicking and applying points. This allows you to draw smooth curved lines.
2. The other really cool thing I learned (And this is unique to Macs, I'm pretty sure)-- Macs let you order your 'layers' in powerpoint! It's does the exact same thing as the Layers tool in Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator! But I think that Mac presents it in a way more intuitive way. Take a look!
This was by far the best surprise I discovered during my project. It made my work so much easier because I often had 4-6 things layered on top of each other, and it was hard to click on individual shapes.
For the flag at the bottom of the Coat of Arms, I went to trusty Google and searched 'coat of arms'. Given the shape of the crest I decided upon and the motto I had in mind, I found one flag to be perfect for my project. It belonged to New Zealand's Coat of Arms.
Making the flag and motto
1. First, I dragged the flag into Powerpoint.
2. Next, I used the Curve tool to start tracing bits and pieces of the flag.
I traced the little pieces on the image's left individually. Then, I copied and pasted each of them, after which I horizontally flipped the copies to keep my picture symmetric. After rearranging the layers as necessary, it looked like this:
3. After changing the color scheme, it looked much nicer and less like a blueberry.
You'll see this window:
Unfortunately, when I was writing out the motto, I had underestimated how much banner space I would need. It wasn't too much trouble. All I had to do was pull the banner horizontally to make it wider, and redraw a new curve, and adjust the letters accordingly.
5. And finally, it was done!
1. A spoon and whisk! These originally came up in conversation partly as a joke. I thought it'd be hilarious if M & Em crossed spoon + spatula upon greeting. Something akin to when Ted & Marshall fight with their decorative wall swords in the How I Met Your Mother episode 'The Duel'. These are part of any good baker's tool kit. I'm not a very good baker, because I don't normally use a whisk--just an old school wooden rice spatula.
2. The molecule? Sucrose! It's more commonly known as granulated white sugar. Bakers run out of sugar fast. God forbid if a baker doesn't have sugar in the pantry at baking time... ;)
3. Butter!!!! The second main ingredient of most nummy things.
4. Cinnamon--because M loves cinnamon. You can tell by reading this post, this post, this post, and (phew!) this post from Em&M's blog.
5. 'Butyro Fidimus'--Latin for 'In butter we trust.' I wanted to put 'in butter and sugar we trust' but it seems that the word for sugar didn't exist in Roman times. The word zuccarum means sugar, but it came to be a little later during Medieval times. And so because I couldn't find the word for sugar in Ecclesiastical or Classical Latin, I dropped it from Em&M's motto. Using my very rusty Latin knowledge and Google, I came up with 'butyro fidimus.' I'm open to changing the verb--I myself was not sure whether fido, fidere; confido, confidere; or credo, credere would be a more appropriate choice. Classics majors, let me know! :)
6. Blue and green--because that was M's color scheme of choice.
7. The M & Em on the spoon and whisk, respectively--think of these as virtual monograms. :)
While puttering away on my computer, I made two pretty cool discoveries:
1. You can do most of what you'd want to do in Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator in Powerpoint. True, having one of these softwares would make my life a lot easier (and my wallet a lot lighter). However, the only Adobe product that I own is Adobe Reader, the PDF viewer. And consequently, I got to have some major bonding time with Microsoft Powerpoint.
If you need a Pen tool but don't own Adobe Illustrator, just go to Powerpoint! For those who aren't familiar, the Pen tool allows users to make curved shapes by clicking and applying points. This allows you to draw smooth curved lines.
 |
| Go to Insert > Shape > Lines + Connectors > Curve |
 |
| Each time you click you put down a point. Location of the next point determines the curvature. |
 |
| After you draw your curve, you can edit points! |
 |
| If you want, you can add and delete points! Just like in Illustrator! |
2. The other really cool thing I learned (And this is unique to Macs, I'm pretty sure)-- Macs let you order your 'layers' in powerpoint! It's does the exact same thing as the Layers tool in Adobe Photoshop or Illustrator! But I think that Mac presents it in a way more intuitive way. Take a look!
 |
| Right click on one of the objects in a region with lots of other objects. |
 |
| This window comes up! You then click and drag your layers into whatever arrangement you'd like. |
For the flag at the bottom of the Coat of Arms, I went to trusty Google and searched 'coat of arms'. Given the shape of the crest I decided upon and the motto I had in mind, I found one flag to be perfect for my project. It belonged to New Zealand's Coat of Arms.
Making the flag and motto
1. First, I dragged the flag into Powerpoint.
3. After changing the color scheme, it looked much nicer and less like a blueberry.
In order to give the impression of some depth, I applied a Gradient Fill on my shapes.
 |
| After you select your object, go to Fill > Fill Effects. |
 |
(A) Make sure you're on 'Fill' (B) Select 'Gradient' (C) Choose the 'Linear' gradient (There are other styles if you want) (D) This will be the color at one end of your shape. It can be changed. (E) This will be the color at the other end. By dragging D + E along the strip, you can change how much of each color your shape will have. |
4. Adding the text was a bit tricky. At first, I tried just writing each word and superimposing it on the flag, but that didn't look too nice.
 |
| The word was too straight against the nice curve of my banner. |
If I had Illustrator, I would be able to type text onto curves. The next best solution in powerpoint? Draw a curve that you want your letters to sit on. Then, type each letter in a new text box, so the bottom of the text box is tangent with your temporary curve. It should look like this:
Unfortunately, when I was writing out the motto, I had underestimated how much banner space I would need. It wasn't too much trouble. All I had to do was pull the banner horizontally to make it wider, and redraw a new curve, and adjust the letters accordingly.
 |
| Time? Letter space? As usual, I underestimated... |
And the best part....putting it all together!
Thanks to Em&M for giving me reason to get artsy and crafty again!
Tech: Instapaper
Ever feel like your webpage is cluttered with ads and banners? To avoid those unnecessarily gaudy advertisements, use Instapaper, a free web-based program that allows streamlined reading of online articles. Read more about it here.
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| In your normal browser, without Instapaper... |
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| In your browser, with Instapaper! |
Friday, May 13, 2011
How to make a vibrating alarm for the iPhone
Ever wanted to set a silent vibrating alarm on your iPhone? You can! To learn how to customize your iPhone in this way, click here to read an instructional post on my other blog, Take a Tech Tip.
iFont, iPhone | I love typography, the typography and fonts blog
I love this. You can take a picture of text with your iPhone, and the app featured in this article will recognize the font for you. Love it!
TuneIn Radio
http://tunein.com/
This app has made my day. Gone are the days of digital clock radios! Now, you can turn your phone into a very-much-customizable radio. I'm a little too lazy for real music searching, so I usually rely on the radio (shout out to Alice 97.3 FM!) to play my favorites and give me new suggestions. I think, in a way, this app makes my phone better than my mp3 player. If you have an iPhone, the app is reasonably priced at 99 cents. They also provide players for your computer desktop.
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