28
04
2008
Well its been a long time since I have posted so I thought I would do some updates. Two months ago, I bought the new Macbook Pro and I love it. It has been nearly two years since I last had a laptop. I dont know how I managed without one when going to work or elsewhere without it. For the past four months or so now, I have been working on a new game in using Flash 9 and ActionScript 3. The main objective of the development of this game was to make it as dynamic as possible.
To work toward achieving that goal, I have, for example, one function for creating all the lasers that can be fired. I pass around 12 different parameters to determain the color, size, speed, direction, etc for each laser created. The lasers themselves are being created just with code, so I have next to no actual assets outside the menu. I still have about another month or two before I actually finish it, but its coming along well. It has been quite a learning process throughout the whole thing. At first it was pretty slow with all the visual effects I have going on, but I kept on finding new ways to do everything to make it more efficient on the cpu. So I have seen it go from really slow, to really fast even on older machines. I’m quite proud of it so far.
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Categories : Flash, General, Hardware
5
06
2007
Today Apple has unveiled a significant update to its Mac Book Pro line of computers. This update includes LED displays, which will help out with battery life of the machine and the display no longer has to take time to reach full brightness. It is instant upon power on now thanks to the new LED displays.
The processor also saw an update to the Santa Rosa series of the Intel Core 2 Duo CPU. One thing that I have been waiting a long time for is an update to the video which did happen with this update. The new video card is a brand new release of the NVIDIA GeForce 8600M series. What I am especially excited about is that this is a DirectX 10 compatible video card. Taking a guess from memory, it also appears that the hard drives received a boost in memory from 120 Gigs standard to 160 Gigs, which is great for someone like me who utilizes BootCamp so I can have a Windows operating system of a decent partition size.
Well, thats all I got for now about the update. Now just to find a way to start saving money.
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Categories : Apple, Hardware, Technology
17
05
2007
Elgato Systems has recently released Turbo.264, its h.264 hardware video encoder accessory for Mac computers. Some may be asking why should I buy a video encoder when my Mac can already encode videos with h.264? Well, whenever you use Quicktime, for example, to encode a video, it is using the Quicktime software and your processor to render out and encode the video. When videos are being encoded it pretty much uses 100% of your processors power, leaving you with next to no room to do anything else(browse the internet, listen to music, etc).
This is where Elgato’s new Turbo.264 device comes in. It is the same size as a USB pen drive and even plugs into your computer through USB. The Turbo.264 device’s soul purpose is to render and encode videos using Apple’s H.264 codec and to take the stress off your processor. Elgato is listing the device as being able to encode videos up to 4 times faster on an Intel-based Mac, and is even higher than that on older PowerPC based Mac’s.
The device is only $100 and for that amount of money, this hardware video encoder is well worth it and I will definitely be picking up this new toy.
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Categories : Apple, Hardware, Movies, Software, Technology
8
05
2007
Well, it has been confirmed by Apple that sometime this year that they are going to be switching out the old laptop displays with LED back lighting. What does this mean exactly? Many things. Back lit LED displays consume far less power so your battery will last longer. They are also much brighter and have more vivid colors, while still using less power overall. So thats something to look forward to when the MacBook Pro series laptops are updated.
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Categories : Apple, Hardware, Technology
14
03
2007
A new rumor is flying around the net that Apple will soon be incorporating an H.264 hardware chip in every Mac machine. This hardware chip is designed for the encoding and decoding of videos, especially high-def video at 1080p. Now you may be asking, “How is this going to be a benefit?” Current machines use software to encode videos and movies, using the processor and other components of your computer, whether it be a Mac or a Windows machine.
Since it is using the processor to primarily handle the encoding, its pretty much all your computer can do because video encoding is very demanding. If you were to try to run any other program while encoding a video, it would be very sluggish. If Apple does actually include a chip just for video encoding and decoding, it will take a great strain off your processor and for the most part you can use your computer like normal while encoding a high-def video.
So when does this kick-ass chip start coming with new Macs? The very earliest is looking like June. It could be the end of the year though before they actually start coming out.
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Categories : Apple, Hardware, Technology