Ok so since I last updated a fair bit has happened, first I have just started a new podcast called the “Bilsta57 podcast” which you can check out on iTunes here: http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=335513896 new episodes will generally be available every Sunday there may be the off week were it will be out on a weekday but in general check back every Sunday. Also just recently Daniel Feeney of www.TheMacFeed.com has sponsored me so a huge thanks to him, go and check out his site he has some great content on there. I am looking forward to the upcoming holidays :D I will definitely be posting a lot more around Christmas time so definitely stay tuned on this site for that just like I did last Christmas. Sorry about the short post, but hey, its a an update right?.

I also may be doing a live stream event around Christmas time, I’m not 100% sure on that but I will keep you updated, it should be fun if it happens there will be giveaways and the show will most likely be sponsored by companies so we can give away even more stuff!. It will basically be a stream to see who can stay up the longest and whoever does wins and wins prizes, simple right?. Anyway stay tuned for more updates.

-Bilsta57

So how do you mount this? (Someone on this site also asked this question). All you do is get your drive and position it with the screw holes then get a screw and get the corresponding allen key the just simply screw it in place, simple just repeat for every screw there should be 4 holes, 4 screws etc. if you are looking to buy this great product here is the link to their site: http://maxupgrades.com also make sure that when you order from them you get the counterpart sled for example if you have an ‘08 Mac Pro get the ‘08 sled if you have an ‘09 Mac Pro get the ‘09 Sled. Sorry about this short post there will be more to come also check out my new page for my podcast that I just started http://bilsta57.com/?page_id=1263 it will have all the episodes of the podcast archived there.

So getting onto the hardware side mine is 2x 2.93GHZ Nehalem Processors for a total of 8 cores and 12GB of DDR3 ram at 1066MHz with a ATI Radeon HD4870 and an Intel X25 E SSD (64GB) and 2 superdrives, wifi etc. You can see the full specs on my video. This system is so quick its unbelievable and a lot of that has to do with the SSD because your hardware can be insane and your performance may be slow, why?. Well because a HD or Hard Drive has to spin to access files and its not an instant access plus the read times are insane mine is 250MB a second, yeh crazy, and write is 170MB a second anyway if you do get a good computer make sure you get an SSD that is very important.

Another thing to note is that this computer can game with the 4870 and it runs games on very high and for people that say macs cant play Crysis well I was playing it all on high on windows 7 so there you go it can. I also tested GTA IV which ran great and also Batman Arkham Asylum which runs very, very smooth on very high its also a very good game if someone is looking at getting it. In terms of gaming you don’t get a Mac for that obviously, I’m not a noob I know that, but It can run games the same as a windows machine but a Mac is defiantly not ideal for gaming at all, for gaming you would build your own windows pc or get a gaming rig pre built if you don’t know how or don’t want to.

So back onto the Mac pro, it runs smooth I haven’t had one hiccup with the machine it just runs as it should and one small thing to note is that they changed the Hard drive bay sleds for more space for your hands, Thank God!, it was quite bad before because your fingers would get crushed every time you took out a hard drive, its fans have also been changed as well to allow more adequate ventilation. I really like this machine and I would recommend it to anyone who needs a powerful machine, oh and btw it scored 15000 something in Geekbench 32bit in case you wanted to know the benchmark. Also enjoy the pictures and my video :D.

-Bilsta57

1. Go to http://youtube.com/hp
2. Click on community award
3. search for ” me my computer”
4. click on the video and give it a thumbs up and rate it 5 stars and *MAKE SURE YOU FAVOURITE THE VIDEO AND GIVE IT A THUMBS UP*

If John wins you all will have a chance at getting a 32GB iPhone 3G S but like I said *ONLY If he wins* so its up to you to make miracles happen in 3 days people so get voting. You have to give it a thumbs up everyday for the next 3 days in order to win I will chose a winner if he wins. Also Retweet my post on twitter at http://twitter.com/bilsta57/statuses/3888863110 for extra points.

**DISCLAIMER**:

- I wanted to give the prize based on my sole intent to help John out.
- the point of decision I made to do a giveaway was done solely by me and without John Raul’s influence nor knowledge
-  I have used my full right to decide and that John Raul has no relation or attachment with the giveaway.**

-I am also not an entrant at all, again this was done to purely help John out without his knowledge.

-Bilsta57

Just to let everyone know I ordered a 32GB Corsair Extreme SSD to test out to see how it goes and I will probably put an unboxing and review up but that should increase the speed by at least 50%. Anyway back to Snow Leopard, the only one problem with it is that its not that compatible with old software which is kind of a Windows move which is bad on Apples part but still I guess its because their transitioning over to 64bit I have noticed quite a few apps not work but a few still do so dont panic. Snow Leopard doesnt have that many UI changes which for me, I dont care as long as its faster and more stable it does still have a few like the new dock spotlight which is pretty cool I must say and expose has changed a bit but other than that not too much has changed in the UI department.

In terms of 64bit, Snow Leopard does boot a 32bit kernel by default, however you can change that with this handy app but there is still one more problem if your mac has a 32bit efi then it will not boot into 64bit mode even if your processor can handle it, Apple needs to update some efi’s lol. Moving on to the next thing which is stability, it is very stable in my opinion Apple did not and most likely would not release an unstable OS which is great not one app has crashed on me despite the compatibility issues.

In all this upgrade is definitely worth it in my opinion it runs very stable and brings the latest 64bit capabilities to the table which is great for all mac users and in my opinion I think in terms of speed it was better than when Leopard launched, I also noticed that there was not as many people at the Apple store as there was for the Leopard release anyway that was completely off topic. Basically if Leopard is running slow on you or you dont feels its using your hardware to the best of its abilities give Snow Leopard a try and its only $39.00. No offence to Windows users but Windows 7 Ultimate will be close or more than $700, I will be getting Windows 7 though because it is much better than Vista and it is a lot more stable, but Ill save that for another review.

Ok so I will try and get new episodes out every Friday 10PM EST (Eastern Standard Time), but heres the thing my usage may run out and therefore I may not be able to publish an episode that week but do not fret I will have an episode out the week after. In simple terms it is going to be a podcast with my co hosts Brad and Glen that will be every week hopefully and I will cover tech related topics and thats it in a nut shell.

If you want to get the word out please do so, I have also made some wallpapers which you can download here http://bilsta57.com/images/Bilsta57%20Podcast%20Wallpapers.zip enjoy and stay tuned for the first ep some time this week.

-Bilsta57

The competitor to the Tom Tom Australia app is Sygics ”Mobile Maps Australia & NZ” I was very, very close to buying it at one point mainly because its interface looked so clean and it supported Australia. The reason I decided to wait for the Tom Tom application is because it is full turn by turn navigation and obviously it has different voices you can change and it talks to you etc. which I was not too sure if the Sygic app had. The interface on this app is great you have a day and night mode and its all 3D to make it easier for the consumer it also has some really nice features such as:

• Day/night mode
• 3D/2D interchangeable map
• Advanced Planning
• Favorite Locations
• You can set your Home to your address so that when you go to navigate you have an option to go to “Home” which makes things very simple.
• Stores your recent destinations under Navigate to for simplicity
• Point of Interest (POI) Near you or around you which is great

And much, much more I personally feel that it is worth it some people may disagree but if you want to really use your iPhone as an all in one device this will top it all off. The app itself runs very smooth and I have had a great user experience which is always great. You have a plethora of voices/languages you have to choose from and I am really only expecting this to get better with software updates and maybe even custom voices eventually. In concerns of speed it finds your location quite fast and gets straight to it, I have not had any crashes so far and it seems to be bug free which is probably the reason it took them so long to release it because they were most likely refining the software which is great because they did not rush the release.

In all I would give this app about 8/10 the reason I say 8 is because its GUI could have been better and it looks pretty plain but it gets the job done and it just works which is the main thing for a GPS application.

Also I just uploaded a new YouTube vid of the Xbox 360 elite unboxing as requested by Glen, shoutout to him as well so yeh check that out and hopefully I will have some more content to publish soon maybe a game review or an App review not too sure yet so stay tuned for more. You can check out Brads site here: here . And you can check out John’s Techconclave site here .