In an FA artist’s world of vector graphics and layout editing, you either belong within the Illustrator/Indesign camp, the Coreldraw camp, the Freehand camp, or the ‘I-did-it-in-excel/word/powerpoint’ camp.

And of course there are some who belong into the ‘Here’s a piece of paper with my pencil layout so go ahead and print’ camp, which really shouldn’t be a camp at all in the first place.

Instead of a camp it could be a museum exhibition, because these people are certainly destined for extinction.

All these in an FA artist’s make believe world of course.

Personally, I’m an Illustrator converted into Freehand camp, and I’ve stayed there religiously ever since, as what’s not to love about a vector app that handles images fluidly, works bezier curves like a charm, and operates inobtrusively and responsibly with its ‘clipping mask’ ability.

FreehandMX is beautiful.

They say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, but you could probably imagine my devastation as it failed on me time and time again, whenever I installed FreehandMx onto my Mac and tried launching it.

It’s similar to the frustration of a pensioned Singapore man going to Geylang and his not-so-younger brother just won’t ’sedia^1′.

My beloved FreehandMX failed to launch repeatedly, no matter how many clean installs of it I made, and it didn’t hit me to search Google for a solution, until today that is.

FreeFreehand’s wordpress blog was top searched and it managed to solve my Freehand issues within a few minutes.

A tiny ZIP file download, a short extraction and pretty soon after, Freehand launched for the very first time, on my Mac.

It’s similar to the satisfaction of a pensioned Singapore man g…. oh, nevermind.

Bottomline is, FreehandMX worked like a charm, and if any Mac users are facing similar issues after a reboot of Mac OS X 10.6.2, aren’t you glad that I have your solution here?

———-

¹Sedia: ‘Sedia’ is a military command, in the Malay language, which simply calls for recruits to stand in attention, still and firm.

I wish I could dabble and dazzle being an iphone app developer, but last I checked, my hoard of programming books were still fully covered in dust, and no way am I going to go anywhere near it.

But here’s a fella who took 11 years to create his first iPhone app, but wait let me readjust and rephrase that sentence a little bit, so that it makes more sense, considering the iphone was born only a few years back.

Here’s an 11year old fella who created his first iPhone app, selling it for 99cents, and if you think that being 11years young makes it amazing, digest this:
The majority of the money from sales of the iPhone app goes towards a hospital where he was treated, after suffering from a benign tumour — nothing cancerous though, but enough to cause 9 months of concern from friends and family as he stayed home, recuperating.

How benevolent is that? Where earlier I mentioned about what you would do when you’re gifted with a $1000 monetary, here is a tiny fella (BUT with a big heart) who decides that he’ll give away a portion of whatever he earns, before he even earned it.

And here’s the best part: He wants to create more apps, so that he can donate more to hospitals.

So, Cameron Cohen, well done lad. You know, you’re gonna be big, um.. pun intended, someday.

You’ve seen Avatar in Real3D (and shame if you haven’t), and did you enjoyed it as much as I did?

Well apart from getting dizzy from the ‘man-made’ 3 dimensional visual perceptions, I think it’s a great entertainment tool for the future.

It won’t be cheap, and I certainly won’t be able to afford it, but just the thought of revisiting Pandora nightly before you sleep, it’s simply out of this world.

Um, pun intended.

Anyway for a football fanatic, like I am, it doesn’t get any bigger, ahem, than watching your English Premiereship stars in Real3D, as reported here by Marketsaw.

It will be as if you’re right there running and jumping beside them.

So what if there aren’t any flying banshees or lean and tall blue humanoids on the screen, but instead 22 (23, if you count the referee) sweaty, athletic men chasing a single white ball around a grass pitch.

It will still be awesome-tastic!

But too bad I won’t be catching my idol, Steven Gerrard, or Torres in Real3D anytime soon.

English Premiereship in Real3D not yet available here. T.T

No thanks to a hectic week of exhibitions and the usual changes of adverts, I’d like to visit Hell for a little bit of R&R now.

And have I shared my BBQ pics yet? Of course not.

But I’m sharing these gems:

As if punching the keys on a 17inch Macbook Pro isn’t enough, I’d like that 32inch monster please.

Actually, for about a little bit more than an iPhone, you’re getting more than twice the processing power, about quadruple the screen estate, and an endless barrage of jealous onlookers, because they cannot swipe their netbooks and laptop while browsing websites/photos, while you can.

Okay, so the iPad can’t make calls or take photos, but it’s essentially an iPod touch on steriods.

And it’s thinner and lighter than your netbook.

It lasts longer than your netbook.

It loads and shutsdown faster than your netbook.

And best of all, to all those complaining it can’t run conventional OS and apps, it doesn’t have viruses and malware like your netbooks.

Period. (No puns intended.)

My A geek’s dream come true.

This date is not just my birthday, but also the probable launch of Apple’s much rumoured tablet PC, wait, does apple conforms as a PC these days, especially with its Intel chip?

Nevermind that, and anyway, PCWorld buzzes that on January 26 I will receive hoards of gifts, like a beaver stuff toy, from my legion of fans, which is about 3 people at most the iSlate will be born into this world.

Now I am no Apple fanboy (yeah, all fanboys keep denying they’re not right? But really, I’m not. So…) but I am thrilled at the various images of the iSlate, the name that tech industry insiders (people who are inside the tech industry) have bestowed to the mythical tablet.

Cool.

Cooler.

Slick.

Slicker

Coolest and slickest!

And of course, what would the world be without my vision (Probably the same)?

My version…

Beaver not included.

This is a hot topic among friends and colleagues isn’t it, where the only end to this debate is  a broken nose or a cracked monitor, which was thrown from across the other cubicle right?

Maybe that was a far fetched claim but debates will crop up for sure whenever 2 tech geeks get together to discuss about this.

Of course I always have my fair share of favouritism of brands and models whenever I jump onto the bandwagon and decide to share a piece of my mind.

As always I will always recommend an Asus brand to anyone who asks me which is the brand to lookout for, and looking at the stats above I’m not wrong eh?

Asus makes great reliable motherboards as well, and whenever I’m customising my systems, I tend to choose Asus (if MSI is too expensive) more often than not.

I guess it’s not wrong either when I mention Toshiba as another reliable option, with its famous Toughbook series, which are quite… tough.

However there’s one particular brand which is missing from this list and that is MSI, which to me is an ethereal brand that produces top laptops with over the top features — and I can only think of overclockers and modders for ruining its position here.

Anyway do you see Apple at no. 4? Perhaps something that the Apple execs are not used to seeing eh.

I don’t recommend Apple’s laptops anyway, not because of the scarcity of bootlegged softwares on the streets (btw stop piracy! Ish… ) but because it’s NOT NEEDED by most when you consider the pricetag on their machines.

Unless you’re a Tai Tai, a Designer, or just won a $4000 bet with a friend, which he betted against Singapore wining 1-0 against Thailand last night, then Apple’s machines aren’t for you.

They’re too expensive (unless you get it from bidpax. heh~).

But if you look closely at the title of the laptop rankings above, it says malfunction rates — not feature and ease of use and such, as these would warrant another ranking list altogether.

The ranking above talks about how durable/reliable these laptops are, especially useful for construction workers or students that chug their laptops in their backpacks and then throwing their bags around the floor, before complaining later how unreliable and brittle their laptops are and how they could really use that Macbook Pro with the unibody design instead.

Pffft, I say, then so how does one choose the perfect laptop?

Easy, get one with the perfect warranty.

A lifetime warranty suits anyone best, but in this not so perfect world we live in, a 2-3 year warranty should merit you with enough protection, before the laptop specs become obsolete and you decide to purchase a new one again.