MacFest

Sat, 28 Feb 2009
Machines, 1Utama
8:00 - 10:00pm

Report : Azul Adnan
Photos : Azul Adnan, Zainul Firdaus

The first 'Fest of 2009 took place at a new venue: the latest Machines branch at 1Utama (old wing).

Ian was the first speaker and he talked about the latest version of FileMaker Pro, version 10. He showed some of the new features like the status toolbar and Script Triggers. However Ian admitted that there weren't really that many new features - mostly eye-candy enhancements.

One neat thing he demonstrated was the Instant Web Publishing feature where an online database form, hosted by FileMaker Pro 10, was accessed by the iPhone logged in via wi-fi.

The second speaker was Wei and he brought with him the iTab, a Mac 'tablet' which he put together himself. It was even featured on Engadget!

The iTab is basically a combination of a MacBook and a Wacom tablet. The aluminum case and side grills were specially ordered from the US; the screen was ordered from China; the second-hand Wacom tablet and MacBook were bought from the Low Yat forum; and the stand was from Ikea. The total cost was RM3000+

Wei demonstrated his home-made machine and it worked beautifully.

Next Wei presented his favourite media center for the Mac: Plex. Plex can play a wide range of video, audio and photo formats as well as online streaming audio and video. It doesn't require a powerful Mac to install/run.

Video clips and movies play extremely smoothly. You can select the type of audio format you want and define the offset of subtitles. Plex easily reads your iTunes library and you can even use your Apple Remote to control it.

Because Shah, who was supposed to show iLife 09 and iWork 09, couldn't make it, Ian came back on and demonstrated the Pulse Smartpen from Livescribe, a special pen which records as it writes.

It has a built-in mic and speaker, OLED display and a tiny infrared camera attached below the nib. It comes with a USB cradle, a 3D microphone/headset and a special notebook.

Ian demonstrated by writing on the special notebook and speaking as he wrote. When finished he pointed the pen on random words and the recording would play back what he said at the moment he wrote those words. The pen could also play music by drawing lines like piano keys and tapping on the keys!

The notes written and recorded are easily transferred to the Mac using the Livescribe software.

For the lucky draws there were a couple of books as well as a moshi Zefyr laptop cooler that were given away. There were also some cool Apple logo merchandise courtesy of Apple.

The new MacFest venue is nice and big but it was a little on the warm side. Reuben from Machines explained that the aircon was controlled by the building management but hopefully they can do something about it for the next meeting. Thanks to Reuben and Jeyadev for accomodating myMUG.