Hey,

Just wanted to let you know that you’re looking at the old, depreciated blog for old-computer.org. You can access the new blog at http://jeffsprotberry.com

Thanks,
Jeff

Unfortunately, old-computer never gets updated. You probably notice that the last post is from several months ago. Well, all of that is about to change. Soon, I’ll be launching a new blog, that focuses more on interesting and thoughtful posts, revolving around things that I care about. The blog will also be better organized, and rid of most of the posts on this blog (save for a few, popular ones).

See ‘ya on the other side,
Jeff

Well, Apple is going to pull the plug on lala. (For those of you who don’t know, lala let you stream your music library anywhere on the internet, along with buying $.10 “web songs” that had unlimited online plays.) On May 31st, Lala will cease to exist. Whether or not Apple merges lala’s services in with iTunes is yet to be seen, but for those of you who don’t care or don’t want to wait, I present to you an alternative. Grooveshark (http://grooveshark.com). Grooveshark lets you upload your MP3 library, or stream any song just by searching. And the good news is that (if you don’t mind the not-so-intrusive ad) it’s free! So go and check it out! Also, they offer a $3/month ($30/yr) VIP subscription that offers, among other things, streaming to your phone (Jailbroken iPod OS, Blackberry [excluding storm], Android, and Palm OS) and last.fm scrobbing.

(And no, I didn’t get paid for this post!)

For you eagle eyed readers out there, you may have noticed that we changed our background from the Leopard Server background to the Snow Leopard Server background. I figured we should be up to date on our background!

So, I installed Windows 7 x64, figuring that Apple would allow me to install the 64 bit drivers on my Macbook. I was wrong.

When you insert the (snow) Leopard DVD, it gives you a message along the lines of “you don’t own an expensive enough Mac to use 64 bit Windows”. So, with a little fancy Googling, I found a workaround.

It is confirmed working with the Snow Leopard DVD also.

Open the start menu and type in “cmd”. Right click on the result and select run as administrator.

Then type in:

D:

cd “Boot Camp\Drivers\Apple”

msiexec /i BootCamp64.msi

There! If you have done everything correctly, you should be on your way to installing the 64 bit drivers!

Hello, fellow old-computerians! I am here today to bring you another iPhone/iPod Touch App Store review. This time I’ll be reviewing Jurassic 3D Rollercoaster Rush, brought to you by Digital Chocolate! This app retails for $4.99, and is rated 4+ by the App Store Elves.

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Hey everyone. It’s been a while since my last post, but I’m back to bore you with my ramblings again. This time, I’m reviewing a game from the Apple App Store for the iPhone/iPod Touch, called Minigore. Minigore was created by Chillingo Ltd, and costs $.99. The game is rated 9+ by Apple.

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Well, today when I was using my mac, I needed a good utility to Un-RAR some files that I downloaded. Here, I have listed my 5 most favorite un-rarers. To test the power of these programs, I timed the extraction of a 545.5MB Windows XP installation image, which was placed in a RAR. All tests were done on my 2.0GHz Aluminum Unibody Macbook.

5. Jomic

Test Time: 0:37

Jomic is a comic book reader. However, it allows you to extract files from an RAR, and it is quite speedy at it for something it wasn’t designed to do.

4. The Unarchiver

Test Time: 0:30

This program offers a simple interface and a wide range of compatibility, but sometimes fails to do the job correctly.

3. Stuffit Expander

Test Time: 0:34

This program is simple to use and is compatible with several formats, however once in a while it won’t extract a file that one of the apps below will.

2. UnRarX

Test Time: 0:34

This is my 2nd choice, as it is simple, has a good interface, and gets the job done.

1. SimplyRAR (v 1.09 w/ rar v 3.90 beta 2)

Test Time: 0:33

SimplyRAR is my personal favorite extraction program. It resembles WinRAR very closely, and works very well at extracting and building RAR files. The time with the readily available version, 1.09, was significantly slower than any of the other programs, but when I upgraded the rar version inside of the .app package, it sped up to 2nd place.

After a very, very, very long hiatus, Old-computer is finally back! You may experience some slight performance quirks while I get my hosting situation worked out, but in the mean time, enjoy the website! Also, if you have any suggestions as to what I should blog about, go ahead and shout them out in the comments!

Today, January 24th, 2009, the Apple Macintosh turns 25 years old.

Watch Steve Jobs introducing it back then here.