On April 26, 2005, DirecTV launched the first of 4 new satellites equipped to offer High Definition services to the first 33% of its subscriber’s homes. The first markets to be covered include New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia, Boston, San Francisco, Dallas, Washington D.C., Atlanta, Detroit, Houston and Tampa. Click here for the press release.
The second satellite is set to launch in June while the third and fourth are scheduled for 2007. Together, the four satellites will provide over 1,500 local HD stations and 150 national HD channels.
Though unconfirmed, a Slashdot post indicated that the new HD satellite system would not be compatible with the only HD Tivo box currently available.
DirecTV’s press release indicates that views will require new HD equipment in order to utilize the new HD feeds. It does not, however, explain if this hardware is the same HD dish and receivers that are currently available.
As a DirecTV subscriber, as well as a Tivo advocate, I anxiously await further information.
With each update the OS X, there have been impressive steps forward in underlying technology. And, so far, 10.4 is no exception.
The speed increase is the first thing that stuck me. I never considered 10.3 slow, but I do now! General system work, be it scrolling, opening windows, or navigating the folders of the hard drive, all seem more responsive… just plain faster.
Some applications launch substantially faster. MS Entourage now seems to even render the email messages faster. Granted, all of these observations are non-scientific, since I never timed these tasks under 10.3. But that also shows how much more pronounced the improvements would need to be in order to stand out as they have following the update to 10.4.
The first thing I noticed after finishing the install of 10.4 was the high processor usage. To the average user, this might not even be noticeable since the system was still very responsive. But, I have come to rely on MenuMeters. It adds a processor graph to my menu bar, along with a graph of network throughput and memory usage. Investigating the increase in processor usage showed me that Spotlight was already indexing my hard drive.
Well, we finally did it. We finally added a blog to Maclive.net!
At first, it seemed like blogging was over done. Everywhere you look, blogs are popping up. At first I looked at blogs a something trivial. It seemed like an ideal tool for someone who had little to no HTML experience. Why would I want a blog if I could take an extra minute or two to put up an actual HTML page that provided exactly the info I wanted?
But the more I waited, the more blogging evolved. The tools improved and in fact made it easy for just about anyone to publish a respectable looking web site. More and more users were hopping on board, and blogging really picked up steam.
Then, the more I watched, the more I realized the blogs did more than just give the average person an opportunity to publish on the web. Blogs had grown into a new and unique format for displaying information. The new format made it more acceptable to publish smaller bits of information to the web. Unlike feature length product reviews or stories, blog posts made it easier to keep a site alive with fresh and changing information... even when there was not time or cause for feature commentary.
Project Motorsport started out as a fun way to spend an afternoon. We set out to shoot some motorcycle video and have a good time. Once when we brought the video back and began to edit, we realized we had the making of a music video.
Check out the video and see for yourself. And, if your interested in further information on the project, we give you that too!
The Freedom to Switch:
In 2003 Apple Computer released a marketing campaign with the intention of showing Wintel users how easy it would be to "switch" platforms.
One of the Mac's main selling points, ironically enough, was Digital Video Editing. Apple wanted the world to see how easy it was to edit video on the Mac platform. And, in overwhelming response, Mac users set out to show the world just how easy it really was.
The campaign was effective for Apple, but also spawned a unexpected parody campaign in the Mac underworld. Users from all of the world whipped out their camcorders and set to work making spoofs in the same cinematic style as the acclaimed commercial line.
With this, Maclive.net rose to the challenge and shot our own spoof. We think it proves that a Mac can be a powerful tool in the wrong hands. It also shows how far a couple of Mac fans will go for a laugh. We hope you enjoy our contribution, aptly named The Freedom to Switch.
