Tidal Consulting

City of Gloucester is Out Shopping

James Pope — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 00:39:57 +0000

Thank you for all your responses.

My fair city has put out for bid a new website. It seems like only yesterday my old boss at the Gloucester Public Schools was buying phpWebSite (which is the foundation for both the city and school websites). Time files.

So check out the current one, gloucester-ma.gov and here is the question to people that live and work in Gloucester, MA. What does it do now that you like, what do you hate and what is missing? You can send respond using the comments, the contact form below and I have put together a survey just to ask a few questions. Your input is appreciated. Thank you – James Pope

Workaround: uStream.tv and Logitech QuickCam

James Pope — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 12:13:12 +0000

uStream Defaults to iSight, cannot use Logitech Quickcam

This isn’t a review, the issue I came across was a client trying to broadcast using uStream.tv was caught in the middle of a fight between the built-in iSight and the external Quickcam vie’ing for uStreams.tv app’s attention. So the customer of Tidal Consulting couldn’t use his new Logtiech QuickCam Vision Pro webcam because his MacBook Pro’s iSight would become the video source and he couldn’t choose the QuickCam.

Occasionally there isn’t a fix that delivers the 100% functionality you are after. However with a few added steps, or some modification to your routine, can get you back up and running until a true fix is available.

Here’s the issue:

The QuickCam Vision Pro is driverless — at least it does not use any drivers produced by Logitech — it uses the built-in drivers in OS X (10.5 Leopard) and as best I can tell, it is the same drivers that run the built-in iSight camera in most modern Apple hardware. The issue comes up when useing the Flash based application in uStream.tv which sees your iSight as “USB Video Class Video” unfortunately it also sees the Logitech Webcam as the same thing. My testing showed some inconsistencies between using a Unibody MacBook Pro and a previous generation MacBook Pro. The Unibody MacBook Pro will choose the Logtiech QuickCam over the iSight, allowing me only to use the external webcam, however earlier MacBook Pros will only choose the iSight and not give the option of switching to the QuickCam.

The workaround:

The idea is to preoccupy the built-in iSight so when you launch the uStream.tv app, uStream cannot use the iSight and and allows the Quickcam to become available under the option of ”USB Video Class Video” . It turns out that Apple’s Photo Booth application will only use the iSight and if you launch Photo Booth before uStream.tv, the external webcam will be available to the uStream.tv application.

Have an issue you can’t get around. Contact Tidal Consulting and find out if we can help.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard (10.6)

James Pope — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 21:08:37 +0000

Macenstein.com has reported that Snow Leopard could be available as soon as Friday, August 28th.

According to reliable sources, support training for Snow Leopard has begun, signaling an imminent release of the next major release of OS X. Sources claim a date of Friday, August 28th is extremely likely.

Amazon has Snow Leopard available for pre-order, $29 for a single installation (one computer), $49 for a Family Pack (5 computers). Please note, that you must already have 10.5 installed on your computer to use the $29/$49 version of Snow Leopard. If you are upgrading from an Intel-Mac with 10.4, you must purchased the Mac Box Set with Snow Leopard, which will also includes iLife 2009 and iWork 2009.

Mac OS X v 10.6 Snow Leopard for $29

Mac OS X Snow Leopard Family Pack for $49

Mac Box Set (with Snow Leopard)

If you want to schedule and installation of Snow Leopard or have question about upgrading Contact Tidal Consulting. Also note, Apple has dropped the price of Snow Leopard Server Unlimited by $500.

Snow Leopard to hit next Friday via macenstein.com

Snow Leopard System Requirements via Apple.com

Quickbooks Deal – Mac, Windows & Payroll Services

James Pope — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 17:38:55 +0000

For the QuickBooks users out there Intuit is having a sale on their Quickbooks Pro for Windows and Mac.

Windows:

Download QuickBooks Pro 2009 Now! Save 20% + Free Learning CD

Mac:

Download QuickBooks Pro for Mac 2009 Now for 20% off + Free Learning CD

Payroll Service:

Intuit Online Payroll – 6-month FREE trial – Plus, lock in 66% monthly savings at $9.95/month starting the 7th month.

Both are available as a physical CD or an immediate download. There are also some discounts available on the Premiere edition of Quickbooks and quickbooks.com has some information on the differences between the versions.

Document Scanner: ScanSnap S1500

James Pope — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 16:37:12 +0000