Author: Nick Young

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News

Its Live: Portal 2 for Mac via Steam

If your a game fanatic and you own a Mac, today is one of the best days. After seeing the Portal 2 Press teasers, it’s finally live via Steam. Portal 2 is a unique puzzle-shooter blend that is unlike any other games on the market. Portal 2 boasts single and multiplayer modes that enable two players to work together in different challenges.

Portal 2 is currently $49.99 and can be downloaded through the Steam client.

Before you purchase Portal 2, make sure your Mac meets the system requirements. The minimum requirements are as follows:

  • Mac OS X 10.6.7 or higher
  • Intel Core Duo 2GHz or better
  • 2GB of RAM or greater
  • 7.6GB of available disk space
  • ATI Radeon 2400/ NVIDIA 8600M/ Intel HD 3000 or higher

Remember, the better computer will yield a more pleasing game experience.

Categories
Average Joe's Tips

Heat to Head: iPad 2 vs. Samsung Galaxy Tab

As the tablet wars are just beginning, what device will you choose? Samsung has been doing relatively well with their success on mobile touch screen devices, but Apple has proven their dominancy throughout the past years. Samsung has recently refreshed their beloved Galaxy Tab and has many attributes where it trumps the iPad 2. But overall, which device will fit your lifestyle better. What will your iPad be used for and the price differences that should be considered. Also, don’t forget the cost of 3G service can start to add up.

Remember, that this is only a comparison of hardware. The user experience will differ, the iOS tends to be more user friendly than the Android; however, the Android boasts more of a “geeky” experience. Don’t forget the apps, the App Store has a plethora of apps in contrast to the Marketplace.

Device Apple iPad 2 Samsung Galaxy Tab
OS iOS 4.3 Android 3.0 Honeycomb
Display & Resolution 9.7 inches IPS LCD 1024×768 pixels 10.1 inches WXGA
1280 x 800 pixels
Processor 1GHz Dual-Core A5
9x GPU Performance		 1GHz Nvidia Tegra 2 Dual-Core
RAM 512MB 1GB
Memory Storage 16GB / 32GB / 64GB 16GB / 32GB / 64GB
Micro-SD Card Slot/Expandable No Yes
Micro SD Up to 32GB
Rear-Camera 720p HD Video Recording Capable 3 MP with LED Flash 1080p, 720p HD Video Recording Capable
Front-Camera VGA 2 MP
Connecting Ports 30 pin connector (limited) USB 2.0
Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n 802.11 b/g/n
3G Quadband HSPA
CDMA / EV-DO Rev. A		 UMTS/GSM/HSDPA
4G Support No HSPA+ 4G
App Market Apple App Store Android Marketplace
Amazon Appstore
Barometer No No
Gyroscope Yes Yes
Accelerometer Yes Yes
Adobe Flash No Yes
Battery Life (Running) 10 Hours 10 Hours
Dimensions & Weight 241.2 x 185.7 x 8.8
613g (AT&T), 607g(Verizon)
601g (Wi-Fi)		 256.6 x 172.9 x 8.6 mm
595 grams
Carrier AT&T, Verizon AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile
Price (3G Models) $629(16GB), $729(32GB), $829(64GB), $499(16GB), $599(32GB)
TestFreaks Average 10/10 n/a
Categories
Reviews

Crossover Review

Having a Mac has ups and downs, it’s awesome for music, business, and school. One thing Mac is definitely lacking are games. All those awesome titles like Call of Duty, Battlefield, and others are usually only on Windows and occasionally iOS, but there is always an answer and in this case it is called CrossOver. CrossOver brings all those great applications made for Windows to your Mac and even Linux. It comes in three different versions to fit your needs: CrossOver Standard, CrossOver Games, and CrossOver Professional. Here is a quick summary of how it works. It emulates windows, but there is no dealing with virtual machines or full reboots. CrossOver simulates a reboot within the application if one is needed. CrossOver beats virtualizing games on your Mac in VMware Fusion or Parallels by not having to run unnecessary processes.

It also works with Wine, which pretty much ports or brings over the important files from Windows and allows your Mac to run the applications in CrossOver. It works very well with CrossTie games, but I have found that games that are not supported by CrossTie directly have a slight amount of lag, but for gaming on a Mac, the graphics and speed are on par. However, you also need to take into account that the lag might not be from the application, but the hardware of the Mac.

Above I talked about CrossTie, which helps you by supporting certain games that can be found on the CodeWeavers website’s compatibility page. CrossTie has everything you need, and downloads everything you need. Even if your software isn’t supported, almost all the time you can get your software to work. Also, if your software isn’t supported by CrossTie you can pledge for it, and get it supported by CrossTie.

My final thoughts of CrossOver are that it works extremely well when you think of all that CrossOver is doing. It is very fast, and being an avid game, I have found that games are just amazing on the Mac thanks to CrossOver.

Categories
Reviews

Making Searching your Computer Faster

A lot of people think simplicity is bliss, and I am definitely one of those people.  Today I am going to be showing you two awesome applications that help to replace Spotlight. The first is called Quicksilver (QS). Quicksilver, for me, was sort of difficult to get used to at first, but with time it became a very useful tool.  For me, it really did not shorten my time of searching with it instead of Spotlight.  However, if you are looking for something new that looks very sleek you should check out Quicksilver.  Quicksilver, also sports the ability of an extremely customizable interface and there are many different themes and plugins to add to Quicksilver – just check Google!

The next computer search is called Google Quick Search Box.  The reason why this is a little better in my opinion is the fact that is that it searches your computer and it also gives you the option to search on Google.  It actually has helped save some time when I want to search something on Google, but when searching around the computer, I have not found any significant differences in time saving.

Google Quick Search Box:

Quicksilver:

Sources: [QSB Source, QS]

Categories
Average Joe's Tips

How to: Enable Four and Five Finger Gestures a.k.a Multitasking Gestures

One of the biggest disappointments of the iOS 4.3 was that we knew the neat four- and five-finger gestures wouldn’t be there. But, we didn’t realize they were actually there and just needed a few clicks on the mouse to be enabled. These gestures allow less use of the Home screen and more use of your fingers; after all it is a tablet.

So how do we enable these four- and five-finger gestures, a.k.a Multitasking Gestures? First we need to start with Xcode which comes standard on your Mac depending on your settings, alternatively you can download Xcode from the App Store if your willing to spend the $5. We’re using a little older edition of Xcode, Xcode 3.2.5, surprisingly after downloading a few files from the Internet it was ready to set into development mode.

After you have installed Xcode, fire up Xcode and plug in your iPad. The Organizer should pop up immediately. Under the “Devices” tab on the side, find and select your iPad.

Once your iPad is selected, click on the large titled “Use for Development” button. It will ask you for the “Developer Account” information, just click cancel if you do not have the $99 account. Depending on the version of Xcode, it might need to download a few files, then it will process them — so let Xcode do it’s thing. When Xcode doesn’t show any activity, move down to the next step.

On your iPad, launch the Settings app. Then select General and scroll down until you see the Multitasking Gestures. It’s flip should already be in the on position, and away you go, no more need for the Home button.

Could the Home button be ditched in future versions of iDevices? How did this work for you?