Jim Shaver » mac

KDE 4.3 RC Review

jim — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 22:58:57 +0000

So I have upgraded my Kubuntu 9.04 box to the KDE 4.3 Beta and RCs and am really impressed with the progress that they are making.

Add: deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/kubuntu-ppa/backports/ubuntu jaunty main to your /etc/apt/sources.list or even within KPackageKit and do an sudo apt-get update and sudo apt-get upgrade.

They have made some awesome improvements to the System Settings control panel. They have made some awesome improvements to the information area of the kicker and changes the Wifi plasmoid that I don’t totally understand. The system tray is now collapsible. There is a new feature that allows you to peek into folders and displays some of the contents of the folder on the icon. There are now a lot of options for your desktop including using marble to display the moon as your desktop and stuff like that. I am glad to see that there is a constant improvement of KDE.

KDE 4 on OS X

jim — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 06:38:59 +0000

I love KDE and am ok with OS X so I was very excited about the KDE team releasing KDE 4 on Windows and Mac. It is a technology preview so it is not ready for production.

It installs. You need about 5 packages to get up and running. I also installed Amarok 2. The first thing I noticed is that the footprint of these packages was massive. I have downloaded all of KDE for Linux before and these seem to be about 500MB. The OS X installer seems to be twice this size

After all this I tried running some applications. They pretty much all “run” but whether you can do anything with them depends. Ultimately I am excited and can’t wait until new stuff comes out.

Mac Mini

jim — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 04:18:05 +0000

So I just bought my first Mac. My thinking was to eliminate Windows(I need iTunes for iPhone). I also wanted to have a small media centre system. I also wanted to learn about developing applications for iPhone. I am surprised at how powerful it is. Even so I am probably going to throw in a new hard drive and add more memory.

The thing that drives me crazy about it are the lack of keyboard shortcuts. In Windows or Linux I can use the system without a mouse with a Mac I can’t… Yet. The other thing that is annoying is when switching programs it only has the application and not all the windows of that program.

I was wondering if you can do 4 GB of RAM with the new Mac Mini. I have read conflicting reports online about that. The Core 2 Duo is 64-Bit but is Leopard on the Mac Mini? I’m thinking that the people who can’t get more than 3 gigs and change are on the mac mini with just a core duo.