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Why is it that I always find myself ponying up the small amounts of cash it takes to purchase Mac shareware applications? Black fire and a disco ball? I gotta have it.
Today I fell victim to MacZot’s current promotion (ends in 23 hours!) that saw me gobbling up the public beta of the Disco CD/DVD burning application for Mac OS X, and boy am I content with this lil 700KB number.
Firstly, the hype: when you purchase the beta at the silly-low price, you also get the opportunity to send a free license to someone else. So here goes - the first person to leave an intelligent comment gets the license! (I’ll need a real email address) This is a great marketing idea that see people not only using the beta of a terrifically designed piece of software, but also spreading the word to others so they can try it as well. Good show.
Next, the features: Disco copies discs in two clicks. Say that ten times fast. Disco can span CDs and DVDs automagically. They call it Spandex, I call it dead sexy. This is extremely handy when backing up iPhoto or iTunes, trust me. Disco can burn VIDEO_TS folders by just dragging them onto the application, which makes it great for burning your DVD backups. Disco has realtime 3D interactive smoke that actually wafts up from the application as you burn discs. If you blow into your microphone, the smoke will dissipate, and if you move your cursor around the smoke itself, it reportedly moves accordingly - but I didn’t get to see this on the low-end test box. Disco has an amazingly simplistic interface that is very easy to follow as it prompts you at every step. Last, but certainly not the least in terms of features, and should really be in caps: Disco remembers every single burn and keeps a catalog of the burn sessions using what it calls “discography” so that you can easily do things like print labels, disk jackets, or simply keep handy for when you need that dot release or the pre-altered code that you can never find. Let Disco be your personal sherpa.
Disco runs very well for a beta application. I have yet to see it crash under Panther, Tiger, or even Leopard (WWDC or the 9a ADC build). Oh, and it worked fine in Tiger server as well. Unfortunately the test box is a 1st generation Mac Mini (PPC), so there was no “smoke” to speak of (anyone have screenshots?), so that will need to be tested later. I burned some mix audio CDs, a backup copy of the disk image for Disco public beta itself, an ISO image of Ubuntu Edgy Eft Beta, and a bunch of Gentoo releases, for good measure. No hiccups. I erased a very old scratched CDRW. I even inserted a scratched blank CDR to see what would happen… Well it wouldn’t burn correctly but Disco kept on keepin’ on - like some sort of Disco inferno - no bouncing beachballs of death here. And you call this a beta? I expected flames, not smoke. No crash and burn here.
In these screenshots you see the Disco app in full swing, from installation to a test burn, and a view of all the windows it provides. I really like the design of this app, and it was well worth the 15$ pricetag. If you’re new to MacZot, and need a referrer, feel free to use “blandname”. Now go write some optical media and dance around like a schoolgirl.
Oh and on the topic of Disco, and in the name of Halloween here’s a joke:
“Why didn’t the skeleton dance at the disco?”
“He had no body to dance with”
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This is a list of my favorite Windows applications that I honestly couldn’t live without that also work on Microsoft Windows Vista RC as well, much to my surprise. All of the software is free to download and use, and in fact most of them are open source.
ConTEXT - ConTEXT is a free and lightweight editor for programming or can be used as a notepad replacement. ConTEXT supports find and replace in multiple files at once so changing one method in loads of files is no longer an issue. Works in Vista with no problems whatsoever.
Synergy - Synergy is like a software KVM, but only shares keyboard and mouse capabilities. Synergy is multiplatform, and I currently use it to have my keyboard and mouse work in Ubuntu, Vista, and my Mac Mini running Leopard with no problem at all! This way I get to use my favorite keyboard and mouse and get to free up some space on my desk at the same time.
VLC - VLC has been my favorite media player for years now. VLC comes with most of the codecs you will need to watch videos on your PC already. VLC is very lightweight, and JUST WORKS, something that can’t be said about many media players. The only issue with VLC in Vista is that it turns Aero Glass off while it is playing.
FileZilla - I use FileZilla to interface with clients that still haven’t moved to SCP. FileZilla is an open source FTP client that gets the job done, supporting drag and drop, SSL, and NAT to NAT connections. The only thing it is missing is FXP support, but that’s not really a big deal in my case. Works fine in Vista with no problems at all.
IMGBurn - I love IMGBurn. This is hands-down the easiest way to burn .IMG, .ISO and BIN/CUE disk images to backup CDs or DVDs. Free, open source, and awesome. Works a treat in Microsoft Vista Beta 2 as well.
WinSnap - I use WinSnap to make many of the screen shots you see on blandname. WinSnap supports full screen and windowed screen shots, and also allows for rotation and drop shadows if you feel the need.
Electric Sheep - I often refer to Electric Sheep as “the best screensaver ever”, but truth be told, it’s really a collection of computer-generated screensavers that allow users to vote on them using a Digg-like system. On Windows, Electric Sheep uses bit torrent to transfer the sheep data. Again, working just fine in Vista!
Xming - Xming is my prefered interface to remote Linux boxes. Xming is for Linux what RDP is for Windows - you get a local X server and acceleration that displays data from remote applications running on Linux machines. Tested more than a few times to a remote Ubuntu computer, and one Gentoo box with no caveats.
WinSCP3 - SCP is now my preferred file transfer method. Luckily my favorite client also works on Vista, or I may not have used it at all. Much like FileZilla, WinSCP3 has a very simple, streamlined interface that is feature-rich and gets the job done, even on Vista.
So there you have it: 9 free applications I couldn’t live without that work just fine on Vista, and make it easy for me to do my day-to-day tasks. Hopefully someday this list will include F-Spot and Amarok, but I’m happy with this as a start considering neither of them work on Windows XP SP2 either!
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Firstly, grab all of the image files from Sun
You’ll need a Sun ID, and you don’t need to use the Java download helper, but if you’re on a slow connection it will certainly help (if anything, it helps by queuing your downloads).
Once all of the files have been downloaded, you will need to extract them. I use WinRAR to do this, but the choice is yours.
Navigate to the folder you have downloaded the files to. Select all of the files, either by dragging a selection box, or by ctrl-clicking, or shift-clicking. Right-click, then click on “extract files here”. Wait a while (this is a full DVD image).
Once this process has completed we will need to concatenate the files together.
The next step is not required, but I find it will help with everyday computing as well so I have included it.
You’ll need to somehow run a command in the folder that you have all of the Solaris files in. I use the Microsoft PowerToy to do that. Download and install it.
(Or you can use many other ways to do the same thing if you wish - the choice is yours)
Then find the folder you have downloaded the files to and right-click it. You will be offered the option to “Run Program” from the context menu. Click that button and paste the following into the resulting window.
copy /b
"sol-10-u1-ga-x86-dvd-iso-a"
+"sol-10-u1-ga-x86-dvd-iso-b"
+"sol-10-u1-ga-x86-dvd-iso-c"
+"sol-10-u1-ga-x86-dvd-iso-d"
+"sol-10-u1-ga-x86-dvd-iso-e"
sol-10-GA-x86-dvd.iso
you’ll see (if your files are on the drive “D” and you use Windows XP):
Microsoft Windows XP [Version 5.1.2600]
(C) Copyright 1985-2001 Microsoft Corp.
D:\sol-10-u1-ga-x86-dvd-iso-a
D:\sol-10-u1-ga-x86-dvd-iso-b
D:\sol-10-u1-ga-x86-dvd-iso-c
D:\sol-10-u1-ga-x86-dvd-iso-d
D:\sol-10-u1-ga-x86-dvd-iso-e
1 file(s) copied.
Voila! You can now burn the image using free software like IMGBurn, or commercial such as Nero, Roxio EasyCD, or Cheetah.
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