logic

How desktop virtualization survived the recession

It's fair to say desktop virtualization has had a checkered past.

As far back as 2005, VMworld had presentations on the topic of desktop virtualization, also known as Virtual Desktop Infrastructure. By 2007, VMworld had developed a desktop virtualization track with a number of deep-dive technical sessions. In June of 2008, IDC issued a report on "The Promise Of Desktop Virtualization" touting how desktop virtualization can help rein in the costs of managing and maintaining PC infrastructures.

In February of 2009, CRN reported Gartner's predictions that by 2013, between 10 percent and 15 percent of enterprise PCs would be virtualized. … Read more

A fix for Logic crashing in Snow Leopard

Apple's audio-creativity software suites Logic Pro and Logic Express apparently have a bug in certain setups running Snow Leopard, which sometimes leads the programs to crash at launch or when attempting to perform some manipulations to projects. The crashes will happen even if the user has carried out general maintenance routines such as clearing caches and preference files, and even after reinstalling the Logic programs and updating to the latest versions again.

MacFixIt reader Kevin wrote in describing his issue with these programs:

Ever since I upgraded from Leopard (10.5.8) to Snow Leopard (10.6.8), Apple'… Read more

Who's in charge of this parking lot, anyway?

Traffic Jam is an addictive puzzle game that tasks you with driving a small yellow car out of an overcrowded parking lot. It may not sound very complicated, but with increasingly difficult configurations of parked cars clogging the exit, you can be sure it'll have your head spinning in no time.

Each level starts off with several cars strewn about an invisible grid that allows movement only along straight lines. No turns can be made, and of course, cars cannot be lifted. This means that you have to carefully decide which cars to move, and in which sequence, in … Read more

Simple yet challenging puzzle

AlterJig is a simple tile-based jigsaw puzzle game that is much more challenging than it seems at first. Instead of irregular jigsaw pieces, AlterJig uses identical squares that are rotated in groups of four around the points where their corners touch. The puzzle scrambles the inner squares but not the edge squares; the object is to rotate the tiles to complete the picture. The game includes several image puzzles with different levels of difficulty, but you can make your own puzzle from any properly formatted bitmap image. The game includes a basic but clear Help file, but the brief animated … Read more

Maneuver lasers and pearls in Link It

Link It asks players to use mirrors and rotating pearls to maneuver a chain of laser light around each brain-teasing level. It only sounds complicated because it is--at first.

Each level is littered with different configurations of pearls, one of which is your starting point--the green pearl--which fires off the initial laser. Your job is to rotate the pearls so that they reflect the laser around obstacles and eventually back to the green pearl. Oh, and every pearl must be linked in the resulting chain of light.

As you've probably guessed, Link It is not the simplest game in … Read more

World's Ultimate Brain tests your intellectual agility

Save for the cheesy name, World's Ultimate Brain is quite a well-put-together puzzle game for Android. It tests your brain's speed and agility across four different categories: Calculation, Memory, Visual Recognition, and Logic. Your simple job is to race the clock and answer as many questions correctly as possible. Once you finish, the app will calculate your score, and submit it to the worldwide leaderboard. If you're extra proud of your intellectual skills, you can even have it post your score to Facebook, Twitter, or (inexplicably) MySpace.

While World's Ultimate Brain is indeed fun, easy to … Read more

Logic Pro and Logic Express updates address Hyper-Threading issues

Apple has released updates for its Logic professional audio applications. The updates mainly address problems with how the programs are handled by certain CPUs, including the use of Hyper-Threading technologies in some Macs, compatibility with systems containing more than four cores, and some 64-bit compatibility issues.

The main updates are the following, though the full set of changes can be found in the release notes for Logic Pro and Logic Express:

Support for opening projects imported from GarageBand for iPad Resolves problems related to the support of Hyper-Threading Improved compatibility with 6- and 12-core Mac Pro systems Support for iOS … Read more

Think of Dell as a storage portfolio player

Last year, Dell went on a storage buying spree. Dell took in Exanet for clustered, multiplatform NAS, Ocarina Networks for extensible, cross platform data compression and deduplication, capped-off with an announced agreement to acquire Compellent's virtualized storage arrays and Fluid Data technology, which closed last month. All tallied, I estimate Dell spent nearly $1 billion last year to flesh-out its storage portfolio, which also includes its EqualLogic virtualized storage arrays and PowerVault systems.

Dell storage executives now believe they have the goods to compete head-on with the major storage players (including EMC) in the following market segments:

Virtualized disk … Read more

Does home theater need more than 5.1 channels?

Multichannel movie sound dates back to Disney's "Fantasia." When the film was first released in 1940, the number of speakers used was scaled to the size of the individual theater; 30 to 80 speakers were installed behind the screen and around the perimeter of the ceiling.

Home theater multichannel sound arrived many decades later, and quickly settled on a 5.1 channel system, which is just a scaled-down version of the current movie theater system. The home system uses three front speakers--left, center, right--and two surround speakers placed on the sides of the room. The subwoofer supplies … Read more