The BritishMac Blog

I’ve never been to Filemaker’s HQ but I can imagine what it’s like. Dozens of PowerMac 9600s running OS9.1, with the dev team testing OSX 10.0 behind closed doors. Most of the Filemaker think tank still arguing that Flat File Databases are the future, and that this Relational nonsense will soon go away.

I like to think that most of the Filemaker staff roll up in Morris Travellers, try and get Goblin Teasmade working and then trundle home.

Apparently the bosses son knocked out Bento for them in his half-term hols in 2007, but since then he’s been off to Uni and so Filemaker has had to rely on holiday season templates for updates.

The latest creation from time travelling Filemaker is Filemaker for iPad. I’m looking forward to 2016 when the new buzz technology ‘synchronisation’ is implemented.

I spent a good portion of yesterday trying to get my aging, but still beautiful, mixing desk working as a control surface for Logic – but to no avail.

So in the process of sourcing one for the new studio I decided to have a look at the software options for the iPad and tried out the AC-7 Pro Control Surface priced £5.99 and $9.99 from the iTunes store.

It’s a great piece of software for both home studio and pro studio user, and I have spent an enjoyable day putting it through its paces. I won’t put a full review here (because I’m a tease like that), I’ll cover it this weeks British Mac podcast and then do a in-depth tutorial in the October issue of the PaperMac magazine.

Now I have become captain of my own ship, master of my own fate and loan survivor of a tandem crash (Hancock joke), I find the way I use I.T has changed.

Eager not to waste time when I find myself not in front of my computer but with nothing to do, I reach for my mobile device.

As an iPhone user from the first day of release in the UK about 3 or 4 years a go now, I well remember the difference it made upon my life. Up until the iPhone, I carried an iPod, my Phone and a book for entertainment and communication, then came the iPhone to replace all three. Plus the iPhone added games, a camera and internet browsing for those times I found myself at a lose end.

However all that said the iPhone was still my information, entertainment and communication device and never my productivity device.

Then comes iPad! Writing emails, writing for the magazine, updating my blog, the list goes on and grows weekly.

I’ve heard some saying the iPad is only a consuming rather than productive device. It is true you can’t edit video or audio on it, I do that on my Mac. However for those times (such as now), when I find myself with a want to be productive (rather than forcing myself, I recognise the importance of nothing time), what ever the location the iPad is wonderful.

Just finished British Mac 107. It’s a fairly long one as includes a Logic v Garageband feature.

I’m trying to figure out if the nights are drawing in or it’s going to rain, outside my window looks very dark.

I must be getting old as I now cook in bulk and freeze them, good if I’m home late etc. Anyway I’m getting myself into the zone to cook a HUGE curry – I’ve got this massive cooking pot and tonight is its night to do its thing.

Reading back I must be getting old because a few years a go I would be out in my finest attire on a friday evening, but now I cook Curry

Just as finishing note, a remember a few years ago opening my wallet on Saturday and finding a Naan bread in it from the night before, those were the days!

Will Green
British Mac Host
www.britishmac.com
Twitter : britishmac
Skype: britishmac

Sent from my iPad

For all fans of the greatest film ever made ‘Withnail and I’ comes a new book available for £12 from 

http://www.quartetbooks.co.uk/bookpages/vivianandi.html

Haven’t read it yet, but will offer a review when I have. I hope it’s not the memoirs of this chap Colin Bacon with a little bit of Withnail shoe horned in to sell copies.

Sherry?

VIVIAN AND I
Colin Bacon

‘Give me a fucking pre-med you fuckers, I’m a personal friend of Sir Lancelot Spratt.’ These words of frustration were the last to issue from Vivian’s wonderful classically-trained voice. Forcing himself upright on the hospital trolley, he saluted his friends before being wheeled into the operating theatre for the removal of his voice-box; a procedure he later dismissed flippantly as ‘getting a Jack Hawkins’. His final months would reveal a man of extreme courage, and a refusal to curb his excesses for anyone. Unable to swallow, he was forced to pump alcohol via a syringe directly into his stomach and spent his last few weeks propped up on Moroccan cushions listening to his beloved Elvis, refusing any nourishment other than dry sherry.

This sentiment must have blogged a million times, but out of shear frustration I’ll make it a million + 1.

I want flash on my iPad! Take for example the BBC news site. ‘ohh’ say I, that looks interesting ‘sorry, wrong version of flash installed!’ reports my browser!

I understand Steve Jobs stance in stating that HTML5 is the future, but at the moment I’m more concerned with the present and would like to watch the news on my iPad.

Why can’t we have it? Why can’t we have an enable flash or not button in settings?

I can only think Adobe offended Steve in some way and we’re all paying for it.

I’ve lived my house on and off for about 12 years and have never sat in the space between the wall and the bed (about 3 feet wide) ever, but I find myself there (or here) now.

Shortly I’ll be doing a business special in the magazine, so I’ve been doing a round up of databases.

I’ve always hated Bento but I came to it with an open mind, clearing all past grievances from my memory.

However I have to say if there were an award for the worst Application ever on any platform, in any language, on this planet and all undiscovered planets with intelligent life the Bento would win it.

Same – but hopefully better!

Here’s another British Mac logo I’ve been working on. I gave up on the bowler, it was British but didn’t have that much to do with Apple computers!

What do you think to this one?