theBartels.de » macbook

Multi-Touch Gestures for Firefox and other Apps

CB — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 03:02:41 +0000

The Macbook Air and the recent incarnation of the Macbook Pro have some neat multi-touch features built in. You can e.g. navigate forwards and backwards in Safari or the Preview application, zoom in and out in iPhoto or turn images.

Unfortunately, this only works with some Apple applications out-of-the-box. (Preview, Safari, iPhoto, …)
Especially the three fingers swipe to navigate forwards and backwards would be really handy in Firefox. After a short google search, I found this article in the Apple discussion forums, which links to a system enhancement called MultiClutch. With it you can define per application which multi-touch gestures you would like to map to which keyboard shortcuts.

My current mappings:
Firefox
- navigate backwards: Swipe Left => Command+[
- navigate forwards: Swipe Right => Command+]
- close current tab: Zoom Out => Command+W
- open new tab: Zoom In => Command+T
- reload page: Zoom Out, Zoom In => Command+R
AdiumX:
- switch to next chat tab: Swipe Right => Command+Right
- switch to previous chat tab: Swipe Left => Command+Left
Skype:
- switch to next chat tab: Swipe Right => Command+Option+Right
- switch to previous chat tab: Swipe Left => Command+Option+Left

Macbook Air

CB — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 19:08:40 +0000

After some hassle, I finally got a Macbook Air. At first I had ordered it online at the Apple Store. After some days, I got an email from Apple, that the authorization for my credit card did not succeed. A quick phone call with my credit card company revealed, that they have a security feature, which blocks all transactions over a certain amount of money. So, you have to call them first and ask for a deactivation of that limit for 24 hours and then place your order.

Again some days later, I again got the same email from Apple. This time I called the Apple Store hotline and I was told, that they do not accept international (meaning non-US) credit cards. Good job, Apple! Why don’t you tell me that directly after entering the credit card data!?!

Well, as the only solution would be a money transfer, which is annoying, costs fees and a lot of time, I decided to buy the smaller standard model in the Apple Store in Palo Alto. Yesterday, they finally got some Macbook Airs in stock, so that I rushed out in my lunch break to get one. After having again trouble with this damn transaction limit, I am now a proud(?) owner of a Macbook Air 1,6 Ghz with HDD, Superdrive, USB-to-LAN and Apple Remote.

Results of the first tests in the evening:

looks great

feels good and not breakable

it’s really thin

speed is good so far (just a feeling; only installed applications, surfed the web, chatting via Skype and Adium, Mail, …)

the glossy display is good, but I have to get used the reflections which happen sometimes

you can hear the HDD running (why is the SSD so expansive?? )

And as I always wanted to have my own unpacking ceremony of an Apple product documented in pictures online…here we go:

2008-02-05 – Macbook Air

Macworld & Macbook Air

CB — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 22:13:09 +0000

Yesterday, I went to Macworld in San Francisco. Being in the bay area anyway, I wanted to take the chance to see a keynote of Steve Jobs live. I arrived at the Moscone Center at about 7:30am. At that time, the waiting line for the keynote was already going around half of the block. (approx. 500 meters) Quickly talks with other people in line started about what will come and how it will be, but the line was not moving at all for the first 30 minutes and afterwards only very slowly. The keynote should start at 9am. At this time I was still at least 200 meters away from the entrance of the building. At 9:25am, the keynote was already running for 15 minutes, I finally reached the entrance. At that point, we were told, that the auditorum and the overflow rooms were already fully packed and they would not let anyone in anymore. I was really pissed.

Together with Tony, a guy I got to know in the waiting line, I went to a nearby Starbucks to “watch” the keynote “live” at macrumors.com’s live ticker. :-S

Anyway, I am really impressed by the Macbook Air. Later on that day, I tried it out for a couple of minutes in the Exihibition hall. It is really thin, small and the weight is very low. The multi-touch trackpad works like a charm. (Tried it in iPhoto, Safari, Preview, Finder)
Interesting is the price. In Germany it costs 1699€, in the US 1799$ + tax (~1951$) which results in a final price of 1331€. That is even cheaper than the black Macbook in Germany. Very strange…. Well, the US price finally convinced me, so that I ordered one a couple of minutes ago.

Another new product, which I might buy in the future is Time Capsule. It is a combined wifi router (802.11n) and harddisk, with which it is possible to do automatic, continuous backups of all Macs in your home. As Judith is thinking about buying a Macbook Air as well, Time Capsule could do a good job backup data centrally from all three Macs (the Mac Mini is currently connected to the TV).

BTW…something what surprised me a lot at Macworld was, that there were many different types of attendees. From very young (children) to very old (>70yrs), from looking rather “normal” to looking rather “rich”, from casual mac users to professionals, from users to developers. So it was definitely not only those kinds of geeks I would have expected, but a lot of just “normal” people. For me as a German it was a little bit strange, as in Germany people would not expect to see e.g. many older people using Macbooks or iPods.

Well, now I am waiting for the Macbook Air to arrive (in 2-3 weeks according to Apple.com)…

The fastes Windows Vista notebook is a Mac

CB — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 16:05:48 +0000

Funny…

The fastest Windows Vista notebook we’ve tested this year is a Mac. Try that again: The fastest Windows Vista notebook we’ve tested this year–or for that matter, ever–is a Mac. Not a Dell, not a Toshiba, not even an Alienware. The $2419 (plus the price of a copy of Windows Vista, of course) MacBook Pro’s PC WorldBench 6 Beta 2 score of 88 beats Gateway’s E-265M by a single point, but the MacBook’s score is far more impressive simply because Apple couldn’t care less whether you run Windows.

[pcworld.com]

Apple Mania?

CB — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 02:09:11 +0000

Found two interesting pictures from the The Missouri School of Journalism. Can you find the two poor guys with a windows laptop?