Mike Hudson's Blog

Raspberry Pi Launched

Mike Hudson — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 19:17:48 +0000

So today saw the launch of the long awaited Raspberry Pi Model B.. This small yet perfectly equipment little circuit board is almost certainly going to change many peoples lives.. Booting from an SD card the Raspberry Pi is currently able to support a hand full of Linux Distributions, including Raspbmc, OpenELEC, Debian GNU/Linux, Fedora, Arch [...]

Disable OS X Dashboard

Mike Hudson — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 12:47:26 +0000

When I very first got my Mac I loaded up the OS X Dashboard with countless widgets, doing all sorts like checking share price levels to little puzzle games. However, I soon started to realise that some of my dock items where hogging precious memory, and stealing CPU cycles.. Not to mention the fact the [...]

Quickly open iOS email drafts

Mike Hudson — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 06:04:20 +0000

If your a heavy user of the iPhone Mail application, I’m sure you’ll know just how much of a pain retrieving half written draft emails can be.. Half way through typing up your email a notification comes through, forcing you to have to save it to drafts, only to have to stumble through mountains of [...]

Save 50% off SugarSync’s Subscription Plan

Mike Hudson — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 20:35:21 +0000

The kind folk over at SurgarSync have recently come up with a cunning plan to make you ‘cloud’ storage users very happy people! They are offering a massive 50% off the subscription plans, however this offer is only available until Feb 29th 2012. The chart to the right is the current pricing structure before the [...]

How to: ‘Traceroute’ in OS X

Mike Hudson — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 13:27:06 +0000

Traceroute is an important part of any IT experts toolkit who’s worth his salt.. Traceroute enables you to track down potential routing issues between your Mac/PC/Device to your Router/DNS Servers/Web Host. If, like me you migrated over to Mac from a PC, you will be used to launching a command prompt and firing off the tracert [...]

Twitter update announced

Mike Hudson — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 13:15:39 +0000

Twitter have recently released what seems to be a long awaited updated to the popular iOS variant of the social networks client. Version 4.1 offers several improvements to the previous release, an also sees the return of some features missed by many: Swipe shortcut Easily accessible common features simply by swiping over a tweet. Copy [...]

The ultimate in Mac maintenance – ZeoBIT MacKeeper

Mike Hudson — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 05:20:28 +0000

Check out the ‘ultimate’ in Mac maintenance software, hot of the shelves from ZeoBIT.. MacKeeper 2012 is a collection of Mac maintenance and security tools, all wrapped up in one neat little package. ZeoBIT really have thought of everything! MacKeeper has been proven to keep your Mac running in tip top condition, and has managed [...]

Skype 3.7 for iOS Released

Mike Hudson — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 19:13:53 +0000

Popular Voice-Over-IP calling system ‘Skype’ has recently released an update to their iPhone application. Skype on iPhone works flawlessly for calling your Skype connected friends and family, and what’s more using Skype with ‘Skype out’ credits can often work out cheaper then using your standard mobile tariff. Version 3.7 brings updates to the chat and [...]

Coming Soon to the AppStore – Microsoft Office

Mike Hudson — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:53:15 +0000

Microsoft have been working on breaking into the iOS market since around November last year, and it looks like we could soon be seeing that ever so popular Office logo in our iOS Device AppStores soon. It’s rumoured, that on launch the iOS variant of the popular app suite will support Word, Excel and PowerPoint files. [...]

Add novelty voices to Text-to-speech

Mike Hudson — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 09:16:14 +0000

There is somewhat of a ‘hidden’ feature in the OS X Lion Speech System preference window, the ability to add more ‘System Voices’ to use with the text-to-speech engine. The built in voices can be a bit boring, and no fun at all.. However, if you click on the System Voice drop down, then choose [...]

iTunes track notifications in the Dock

Mike Hudson — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 09:01:34 +0000

I think it’s fair to say that iTunes really does split the crowds, some people love it.. Some people hate it with a passion, well I am up there with the ones who love it.. Sure it’s got it’s issues, but I am not sure the iPhone or the mac would be the same without [...]

Set and unset IP Address from Terminal

Mike Hudson — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 21:27:42 +0000

At work on my desk I have an iMac which I often use for configuring and shipping ADSL Routers, however once I am done it then goes back on the corporate network with a static address. Thus meaning I am often switching back and forth between DHCP and static on the network adapters config. Which [...]

Angry Birds Space – Coming soon

Mike Hudson — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 20:38:06 +0000

Popular multi platform level based game Angry Birds is soon to potentially be replaced on the top of the popularity charts as Rovio Entertainment announce the latest revision of the super addictive game. Angry Birds Space claims to be a completely new game with totally innovative gameplace. However, for all you dedicated fans out there [...]

App Store 25 Billion $10,000 prize

Mike Hudson — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 20:16:51 +0000

Since it’s launch in June 2008 the App Store has been a hit with both application publisher and app downloaders the world over. So much so that the App Store is racing towards it’s 25 billionth download! That’s a whole load of applications! The above snippet was captured at 20:11 18th Feb 2012 (GMT) judging [...]

Start building iOS Apps Today

Mike Hudson — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 19:33:25 +0000

Apple have recently released what can only be described as slightly overdue, yet completely perfect. A ‘complete’ start to finish guide on how to jump into iOS application development. Although not a coveted secret, sometimes starting out in iOS application development can be a mysterious and painful place to be! This guide now walks you [...]

Hands On: Apple Messages 6.1 (BETA)

Mike Hudson — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 10:12:08 +0000

With the release of iOS 5 came the long awaited ‘iMessage’ system. Enabling iOS devices to send and receive messages using data rather then the normal SMS network. This soon became a big challenger to the ever popular BBM. Now Apple have taken it one step further, and released Apple Messages for OS X. Apple [...]

OS X Mountain Lion Unveiled

Mike Hudson — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 09:42:42 +0000

I’m sure everyone can remember last years release of OS X Lion, I know I was beating down the door of the AppStore to get my copy.. Looking forward to taking advantage of all the features it had to offer. Now.. Take all of Lion’s fantastic features, and combine them with iOS’s most popular features: [...]

Delay Outlook mail sending

Mike Hudson — Sat, 04 Feb 2012 13:47:51 +0000

So today I was approached by an internet friend of mine Richard Tubb, he had a bit of a challenge for me. As a keen Ms Outlook user, he wanted to see if there was a way of delaying all emails that he’d composed and hit send on during the weekend to arrive on the [...]

Still available: AirPort Utility 5.6

Mike Hudson — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 22:19:06 +0000

For those of you who are not fans of the latest version of the OS X Airport Utility, you can download the previous version (5.6) direct from the Apple support site. Download Now Personally I think the new version strips away the advanced features of the Time Capsule set up. Which is perfect for some [...]

Time Capsule and Air Port firmware update

Mike Hudson — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 06:16:32 +0000

That’s right… Finally the boffins over at Apple have released the update all Time Capsule and Airport express iCloud users have been waiting for! The latest version of firmware version 7.6.1 is available to download now! This update is for all 802.11n AirPort Express, 802.11n AirPort Extreme and Time Capsule models. It fixes an issue [...]