Sunday, December 15, 2013

How to set up a new Mac (recommended applications)

Here is one approach for setting up a new computer if you had any software available to you. Please give any feedback.

Mavericks is a free upgrade. iLife should come stock. Anti-virus is an option. I have found AV programs like Sophos to be more annoying than helpful, but I think other people should install AV to prevent passing unscanned files. Any favorite Anti-Virus programs?

1. CleanApp-This will help uninstall applications that have been installed after CleanApp was installed.

Browsers
Safari isn't my favorite browser. It doesn't have a lot of extensions to customize it.

1. Firefox-Add AdBlock Plus and select the 'Block High Risk Websites', add Tab Mix Plus and select the option for 3 multi-row and reduce minimum tab size to about 80 pixels. Add Delicious bookmarks (or another crossplatform bookmark app). SoThink video downloader lets you download news video if you are on the news. Sometime links open in a window that doesn't

2. Chrome-Add Adblock Plus and select 'Block High Risk Websites'

(3. Opera can be another browser option, though some formatting stuff in Google Drive doesn't work. Not super customizable.)

Download Flash Player, Shockwave Player, Adobe Reader (if you don't have Adobe Acrobat) for Firefox.

Now time for the ideal apps that do stuff

1.  Microsoft Office (Duh)
2. Adobe CS6 (Duh)
3. Audacity (audio recording) http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
4. Final Cut Pro (video)
5. VMWare Fusion (To install Windows and Linux if you don't want to only do dual boot)
6. Adobe Acrobat Pro (Lets you do some editing to .pdf docs)

Playback

1. VLC (plays nearly any format of video file. Can do audio files, but not as user friendly as iTunes. Can skip sometimes, but it is reasonably customizable, I go with a dark border and can turn captions on and off easily)
2. Maybe DivX (though be careful on the additional programs that may come with it. I may have picked up the horrible Bing Search.conduit from this)  icefilms.info likes it, but most links will play without it using a flash player. I do not have a DivX player installed on my refreshed computer.
3. Perian 1.2.3 (updates Quicktime components to run more video files I believe, possibly .wma)

Potentially helpful or interesting things

1. PTH Pasteboard 4.4 (Remembers a list of things you have copied. Version 4.3 Doesn't auto open for me. I did add the .prefPane to auto run in Preferences, so as soon as you manually open Preferences, it auto opens PTH Pasteboard. Annoying, but not as annoying as not having it run once you start using it.)
2. UnRarX (Opens .rar files)
3. Transmission (can help download some large files)
4. Cinch 1.0.6-(Adds snapping of windows sides of the screen like in Windows 7) to Install it, you have to download XQuartz which may or may not slow down the system
5. CarbonCopyCloner (seemed to have less issues than SuperDuper in 2012)
6. Audio Hijack Pro-hijacks the audio of an application and allows you to mute or really boost the max volume of an application, like hijack Firefox to increase the max volume of a YouTube video to make it way louder even when everything else is maxxed out. It also records application audio.
7. MiniBattery Logger-documents battery charge, so you know how long your battery lasts or how long it takes to charge
8. Geekbench-tests speed of computer

To change default programs to open a type of file, right click on the file, get info, and you can change the default application there.

You can copy an entire iPhoto library to an external drive, and copy it from the external drive to your new install in the correct Pictures folder. It will keep the Albums you've created as well. AirDrop doesn't work well for large files >~5 GB. It can time out.

Friday, December 13, 2013

Electronic Paintball Gun Comparison

From 2006-2010, I bought, traded, and resold electronic paintball guns.

Electronic paintball guns use a battery, circuit board, solenoid (which controls air flow to move the bolt which slides back and forth manually pushing the paintball forward), and a regulator that controls the air flow that then pushes the paintball out at 280 feet per second, the general field speed limit.

There are two general styles of paintball guns, also known as markers, spool valve and poppit valves.

Spool Valves
Pros
They are usually more quiet, which is good for sneaking up on someone, but bad for sound activated hoppers. They sometimes have less barrel rise though than poppit marker.
Cons
Spool valves are a little more maintenance. it takes more time to disassemble them, take DOW33 lube (Sleek lube is the standard) and rub it on the 3+ o-rings so they have a good seal. It gets kid of greasy.  Generally speaking, they are more likely to have problems in cold weather.

Examples: Shocker SFT and NXT, Proto anything (Proto Rail, Reflex, PM5-8), Dye anything (DM4-14), MacDev Droid, Clone.

Here are some paintball companies

Angel-These paintball markers were known for using low air pressure and could shoot very fragile paint without breaking it. The markers were not easy to tech by owners and often had to be sent to a professional gun tech. They used to have a lot of banners with hot girls holding their guns. It was a common sight player got used to at competitions. Though since out of business, Angel used to sponsor the Team 'Joy Division' which allegedly refrigerated their paintballs which made them more brittle, too brittle for other guns to shoot without breaking in the gun.

Smart Parts-Team Dynasty was very well known. They shot the Shocker SFT and NXT with custom bodies and bolts. Ton Ton had a special frame.

DM12

Thursday, December 12, 2013

MacBook VMware Windows 7 Geekbench tests with different processor allocations

MacBook VMware Windows 7 Geekbench tests with different processor allocations

In a dual core computer running Windows 7 though VMWare Fusion 6, what are the Geekbench 3 benchmarks for OSX 10.9 and Windows 7?

MacBook 2.66 Core 2 Duo/4GB 1067MHz

Both processors routed to Windows 7
(Mac Single Core 1195/ Multi-Core 1507) 56% of not running a VM
(Windows Single Core 1349/Multi-Core 2452)

1 processor to Windows 7
(Mac Single Core 1444/ Multi-core 2395)  89% of not running a VM
(Windows Single Core 1306/Multi-Core 1305)

Not running a Virtual Machine
(Mac Single Core 1490 /Multi-core 2672)