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As per-usual there will be no news updates next week as I will be out doing unspeakable this to poultry. Have a happy Thanksgiving. --mam
LED Cinema Display iSight Firmware Update 1.0 corrects an issue with the built-in iSight camera on the LED Cinema Display where the camera may not be recognized by applications.
Boot Camp Drivers Update 2.2 for Windows addresses issues with the Apple trackpad and turns off the red digital audio port LED on laptop computers when it is not being used.
Server Admin Tools 10.6.2 contains remote administration tools, documentation, and utilities that you can install on a computer other than your server.
You know, even after all these years, Mozilla Firefox still isn't great. The interface looks un-Mac-like, the performance is worse than on Windows, and it just feels like an after-thought. Fortunately for those who still have a lot of love for the Gecko rendering engine, the folks behind the Camino Project continue to do brilliant work on their independent Camino browser, the 2.0 release of which shipped yesterday. -- Cult of Mac.
The repair and teardown experts at iFixit are releasing more than 240 repair guides for every Mac mini and most iMacs produced since 2004. The company is also now selling iMac repair parts, from hard drives and RAM to power supplies and disassembly tools.
Google pulled the wraps off of Chrome OS today. You can expect to see Chrome ship in about a year, and showed the first glimpses of the new OS, details about the architecture, the hardware it will run on, and gave us the first hints about what the Google Cloud OS will really look like. -- Maximum PC.
You can use Disk Utility or Disk Copy to burn to one CD-R disc two or more times until it is full, which is known as creating a multi-session CD. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
Learn how to troubleshoot printing issues in Mac OS X. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
In a patent application filed in May 2008 and published today, Apple discloses that it has been researching methods to allow media devices such as the iPod to "push" their graphical user interfaces (GUIs) to accessory devices for the purposes of controlling the media devices remotely. -- Mac Rumors.
A number of people who have just updated to Snow Leopard are still running into printing problems now that Apple has dropped Appletalk support in OS X. Appletalk was an old, proprietary communications protocol that was rather slow and inefficient, and in OS X 10.6 Apple removed it in place of more modern printing and networking protocols. -- MacFixIt.
Cisco has created a free iPhone app with the latest security threats and alerts from the company's extensive internet traffic and e-mail monitoring and security experts. The app also allows users to enter an IP address to determine a website or server's internet "reputation" -- an estimate of risk based on a variety of factors including traffic volume and location.
Aimed at IT managers and security experts, SIO To Go allows users to choose from a variety of security news feeds, including Cisco's Risk Report, podcasts, security blog, Twitter feeds and more. Cisco says the free app provides unique information based on the company's monitoring of more than two-thirds of the world's e-mail through its security appliances and from more than 500 experts.
By entering an IP address or domain name, users can check a site's e-mail or web reputation score. A quick test of one site revealed a variety of information, including volume statistics, information from Whois and a one-word assessment of a site's reputation.
Patent number 20090286549 involves location determination. Patent number 20090288010 is for user interfaces for editing video clips. Patent number 20090287067 involves integrated sensors for tracking performance metrics. Patent number 20090284532 involves cursor motion blurring. Patent number 20090284534 is for thermal management of graphics processing units. Patent number 20090288010 is for a flex circuit with single-sided routing and doubled sided attach. Patent number 20090285037 and patent number 2009028038 involve interleaving charge pumps for programmable memories. -- Macsimum News.
Use these commands in the Finder to manipulate more than just graphics and text. Sure, you copy (Command-C) and paste (Command-V) all the time. But did you know you can copy and paste a whole lot more than just text and graphics? When you start in the Finder, you can use the Copy command to lift all sorts of information from a selected Finder item: the item's name; its icon; its pathname; its content; and, in effect, the entire file. What you get out of the operation depends on where you choose to paste. Here are some of my favorite tricks. -- Macworld.
The Social Network revolution is here to stay like a seasonal flu and there is not way We can escape from their different flavors and functionalities, We are in many way attached to them and as a Mac user (real fanboi) myself, I found very disappointing that Apple hasn't added this kind of stuff to the System, in a modular form (plugins) or inside Mac OS X Core for a later implementation by developers. Anyway, We are alone when it comes to interact with everything outside Apple. Here is an idea and a few solutions to have your Mac OS X behaves a little more social. -- The Apple Touch.
It's so easy to take Address Book for granted, and yet that simple utility has two absolutely killer features: big phone numbers and simple envelope printing. These features do exactly what their descriptions suggest: display phone numbers in Very, Large, Type -- and print envelopes, complete with your personal return address. -- The Unofficial Apple Weblog.
Apple tablet rumors started verging into the ridiculous Thursday morning with reports that Apple has pushed back the project's launch date yet again. Those same sources are saying Apple is developing a high-end tablet that could retail for as much as $2000, according to Digitimes.
Even more preposterous is the news that major magazine publisher, Conde Nast, has decided to develop products for the tablet, according to Peter Kafka over at All Things D. There's only one snag to the publisher's plan: the company doesn't know whether the Apple tablet is real or not.
These rumors are getting so ridiculous that I think it's time we accepted the truth: the Apple tablet is dead; in fact it probably never existed. -- PC World.
Remember last week, when the net was abuzz with the news that the Mac OS X 10.6.2 update broke notebooks with Atom processors? Well, given the first syllable of the word "hackintosh" it's little surprise that that state of affairs has changed. The release of a newly-hacked kernel claims to allow the Snow Leopard to roam freely off of the Apple steppes. -- Macworld.
I read today on Slashdot that the Droid's "unlimited" data plan is actually only 5 GB a month. I'm wondering, based on other Android phone users' experience, what's the average data usage per month? Average monthly iPhone data usage would also be handy. -- O'Reilly Answers.
Mysterious (and recurring) charges showing up on your credit card bill for some Internet "discount program" you don't remember joining? The Senate Commerce Committee today dropped a scathing report on this mini-industry--and the reputable companies who enable it to prosper. -- Ars Technica.
The fact that Grackle68k exists is wonderful for two reasons... -- Gizmodo.
Eighteen-year-old English entrepreneur Ed Nash has come up with a 99-cent iPhone app, Fit or Fugly, that claims to use Fibonacci's golden ratio to scientifically determine whether or not a face is aesthetically pleasing. Just snap a photo of the hapless subject, adjust the anchor points, hit the button and viola, instant decision.
I didn't know, so I figured I'd give it a shot. I brought an ancient and non-functioning 1987 Macintosh Plus 1MB to the Apple Store in the Meatpacking District in NYC, and this is what happened. -- Gizmodo.
We're in the middle of a huge platform shift in computing and most of us don't even know it. The transition is from desktop to mobile and is as real as earlier transitions from mainframes to minicomputers to personal computers to networked computers with graphical interfaces. And like those previous transitions, this one doesn't mean the old platforms are going away, just being diminished somewhat in significance. All of those previous platforms still exists. And desktops, too, will remain in some form when the mobile conversion is complete, though we are probably no more than five years from seeing the peak global population of desktop computers. We'd be there right now if we'd just figured out the I/O problem of how to stash a big display in a tiny device. But we're almost there. That's what this column is largely about. -- I, Cringely.
Your Home folder may not appear in the Users folder in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.
Don't worry, your home directory has not been deleted. To resolve this issue:
After the command completes, you should be able to view your Home in the Finder. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
Using Unicode in Mac OS X can increase compatibility, but it may change the way you are accustomed to typing special characters. Many Mac OS X applications support Unicode, a single, world-wide character set that works with most of the world's languages. The advantages of using Unicode include easy interchange of data with users of other operating systems, and not needing to know which font to use to display text in other languages correctly. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
After updating to Mac OS X 10.6.2 or later, you may be unable to receive POP account messages in Mail. Mac OS X v10.6.2 and later changes how authentication works for receiving POP messages in Mail. Mail no longer will try a different authentication method if the preferred one did not work. This means if your POP mail server does not support the authentication scheme you have selected in Mail preferences, Mail will be unable to process incoming messages. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
Users of iPhoto '09 will be happy to know that there are some basic troubleshooting methods and maintenance tips that can keep their favorite photo management tool up and running smoothly. On the Mac, there is no better tool to organize, edit, and share your snapshots than iPhoto and these tips help keep it that way. -- MacFixIt.
If you use the Terminal, you may run into a problem where the Terminal will display a new window but will not show you a command prompt. You can enter text, but nothing registers as a command since there is no active shell. I very frequently use the Terminal, and periodically this has happened to me and can be quite frustrating.
By default, the Terminal uses the /usr/bin/login process to open a new shell, but if there is a problem with access to the login process, or with resources that the login process needs (ie, access to the settings for the active account) it may hang and prevent the Terminal from logging in. This is indicated by the word "login" instead of "bash" (or the name of another shell) being present in the Terminal window title which means the login prompt is still the active process and has not loaded the shell. If this happens, there are several things you can do. -- MacFixIt.
MacInTouch's Apple Mail vs. Entourage reader reports discussion continue.
Several Apple patents have appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. Here's a summary of each. Patent number D604305 is for the graphical user interface for a display screen or portion thereof. Patent number 7619618 is for identifying contacts on a touch surface. Patent number 7620753 involves lockless access to a ring buffer. Apple has also been granted patents involving the MacBook Pro (patents D604292, D604293, D604290 and D604291), the MacBook Air (patents D604294 and D604289), the iPhone (patent D604297), a keyboard (patent D604300) and a cable (patent D604253). -- Macsimum News.
VMware has released the latest version of the popular Mac virtualization package, Fusion 3, and Ars puts it through its paces with a battery of benchmarks and usage scenarios. Read on and find out if this upgrade is for you. -- Ars Technica.
'Tis the season to do some shopping, and if you've added a new Macintosh to you shopping list, you've picked a great time to buy one. Apple's current lineup features a nice variety of Macs that offer great value. But with all that Apple has to offer, it's understandable if it's unclear as to which Mac you should buy. We've tested almost all of them and we're here to help.
In this buying guide, we'll cover all the Macintosh models available, tell you how they've changed over the previous model, and how well they did in our benchmark tests. If you want to read the full review for each Mac, just click on the links. We've also provided links to help you find the best prices. -- Macworld.
A survey of 30,000 laptops has found one in three machines die within three years and netbooks do even worse, suffering 20 per cent more hardware failures than larger laptop machines.
Apple is fourth placed for reliability behind, in ascending order, Sony, Toshiba and in first place Asus. To be fair to Apple there's not much in it - 15.6 per cent of Asus machines are expected to malfunction within three years, compared to 17.4 per cent of Apple laptops. Worst performer is HP - 25.6 per cent of its machines are expected to break within three years. -- Channel Register .
This is why you get AppleCare on laptops people.
The combination of bad UI decisions and sluggish performance has turned me off from Microsoft's latest and greatest. -- InfoWorld.
The Open University, a distance-learning institution based in Britain, has delivered 10 million free downloads of lectures via Apple's iTunes U, which is two years old. -- New York Times.
VirtualBox, an open source x86 virtualization project available for free has just hit version 3.0.12. VirtualBox 3.0.12 is available for free and requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later and an Intel-based Mac to install and run. The new version is a 62.9 megabyte download and sports the following fixes and changes.
The iPhone, in addition to revolutionizing how people thought about mobile phone user interfaces, also was one of the first devices to offer a suite of sensors measuring everything from the visual environment to position to acceleration, all in a package that could fit in your shirt pocket. On December 3rd, O'Reilly will be offering a one-day online edition of the Where 2.0 conference, focusing on the iPhone sensors, and what you can do with them. -- O'Reilly Radar.
In a recent interview with Alasdair Allan regarding the iPhone sensor suite, he talked a bit about how the various sensors have to be used together to figure out how the phone is oriented. -- O'Reilly Answers.
In a recent interview with Alasdair Allan regarding the iPhone sensor suite, he shared some information about a little known sensor.The proximity sensor is an infrared diode. -- O'Reilly Answers.
Apple has filed a patent that forces users to interact with an ad. FTFA: 'Its distinctive feature is a design that doesn't simply invite a user to pay attention to an ad -- it also compels attention. The technology can freeze the device until the user clicks a button or answers a test question to demonstrate that he or she has dutifully noticed the commercial message. Because this technology would be embedded in the innermost core of the device, the ads could appear on the screen at any time, no matter what one is doing.' -- New York Times.
Popular videos and articles get reposted or discussed on dozens or hundreds of sites. But Web experts are now thinking about how to keep track of online conversation in real time, even when it's scattered all over the Web. A new crop of protocols aim to do just that. -- MIT Technology Review.
These download includes the latest printing and scanning software for Snow Leopard. Requires Mac OS X v10.6.1 or later.
While AT&T time and time again promised tethering, it somehow never seemed to deliver, read the account of failures by ATT and tethering alternatives. -- iSmashPhone.
Mac OS X v10.6 Snow Leopard includes software for many printer and scanner models. This software can be installed from the Snow Leopard Install DVD, and installed or updated by using Software Update (some models have software available through Software Update only.) This article lists software provided for printers and scanners as of 16 Nov, 2009. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
Sometimes you may need to reinstall OS X on a computer, but the drive is broken, resulting in an obvious problem with reading the installation DVD. While broken drives can be easily fixed or replaced, it does take your computer out of commission for the time it takes the repairs to be done. Meanwhile, there are a few approaches to reinstalling OS X that may work. -- MacFixIt.
Formatting equations in documents is something that I used to love doing, and years ago for various high school and college math classes I would spend large amounts of time drawing them in programs like ClarisWorks to get the formatting done correctly. There is a solution that comes with OS X and may be useful for those who only periodically need to create equations. This is the "Grapher" utility that is buried in the "Utilities" folder and does not seem to get much attention. -- MacFixIt.
We, like many of you, are excited about the new quad-core iMacs. We ordered the "Core i7" model and decided to compare it not only to the fastest dual core iMac but also to the quad-core and octo-core 'early 2009' Mac Pro (Nehalem). -- Bare Feats.
Contrary to popular belief, it's really easy to retrieve content from finished PDF documents. I need to say it: PDF files are supposed to be the final format for content. You aren't supposed to need to edit anything once it's been turned into a PDF. In the real world, however, many people find themselves, for a variety of reasons, needing to get material out of a PDF, either for reuse someplace else or for further editing. Here's how to get that PDF content out of an Adobe Acrobat document. Note that the instructions below are operative for Adobe Acrobat's pro version, as opposed to the free reader. -- Macworld.
It is becoming clear to me that we are heading into a bloody period of competition that could be extremely unfriendly to the interoperable web as we know it today. If you've followed my thinking about Web 2.0 from the beginning, you know that I believe we are engaged in a long term project to build an internet operating system. I've outlined a few of the ways that big players like Facebook, Apple, and News Corp are potentially breaking the "small pieces loosely joined" model of the Internet. But perhaps most threatening of all are the natural monopolies created by Web 2.0 network effects. We're facing the prospect of Facebook as the platform, Apple as the platform, Google as the platform, Amazon as the platform, where big companies slug it out until one is king of the hill. And it's time for developers to take a stand. If you don't want a repeat of the PC era, place your bets now on open systems. Don't wait till it's too late. -- O'Reilly Radar.
The push is on to build exascale systems that can solve the planet's biggest problems. -- Computerworld.
Multitrack studios first went digital, and now they're going portable. Budding musicians can now lay down overdubs on their smartphones and on the Web, even without springing for GarageBand or ProTools. Ars Technica looks at a pair of the most innovative approaches to recording music on the go and collaborating with others.
After a year at No. 2, Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Jaguar has emerged as the world's fastest computer, according to the Top500 rankings unveiled today. -- Knoxville News Sentinel.
Rogue Amoeba becomes the latest developer to quit the App Store in frustration over Apple's lengthy review process. The developer "no longer has any plans for additional iPhone applications, and updates to our existing iPhone applications will likely be rare," according to a Friday blog post. -- Cult of Mac.
Apple's designers and engineers have done a good job putting together what is an iconic product, the iPhone. Its software gurus have helped foster the app revolution. But it when it come to the App Store approval process, Apple is blowing it. -- Gigaom.
The delivery of the Core i7-based iMacs have generated the usual discussion threads about unboxing, impressions and benchmarks. The performance of the high-end iMacs have been of particular interest due to the new incorporation of desktop-class processors into Apple's consumer line. -- Mac Rumors.
The 27-inch iMac is already a milestone for Apple through its inclusion of a truly greater-than-HD display, but the addition of Core i5 and Core i7 processors transforms it into a near powerhouse. This is the first iMac in recent memory to come close enough to Apple's workstations that it could replace one of them. Our review of the Core i5-equipped iMac will find out how close it comes to that goal and whether it's a worthwhile option for any other prospective Mac desktop owner. -- Ars Technica.
Audio-Technica has released its AT-LP120-USB Direct-Drive Turntable System, an USB turntable and software package.
The AT-LP120-USB lets you transfer records to digital media files. It includes includes a direct-drive turntable and phono cartridge, Mac compatible software, a USB cable and accessories.
The AT-LP120-USB features a direct-drive motor with both forward and reverse "back-cueing" play capability, making it suitable for DJ as well as home use. The AT-LP120-USB offers 33-1/3, 45 and 78 RPM operation, with speed adjustment and a speed indicator. The built-in phono preamp and included cables allow connection to a variety of home entertainment components and A/V receivers.
The AT-LP120-USB is designed play LPs, 12-inch and 7-inch singles and even 78 RPM records. It features a heavy-duty cast aluminum platter with slip mat, and a pickup arm with soft damping control and adjustable tracking force, anti-skating and vertical tracking angle (VTA). It's supplied with a precision Dual Magnet stereo phono cartridge with replaceable stylus. A USB cable is included.
The Audacity software converts the audio on a record to digital audio files, which can then be played back on portable audio players and other devices. The Audacity software includes audio editing features including equalization and noise removal.
Mac OS X is built in ways that naturally fortify it against certain types of malware. Its highly customized kernel isn't prone to many of the same attacks that plagued older versions of Mac OS. However, Mac users shouldn't behave as though they're entirely immune to online crime. Much of today's cybercrime is performed without malware at all. -- MacNewsWorld.
Though the ikee worm and other recent incidents have highlighted security risks facing users of jailbroken iPhones, the question remains: if you are using a jailbroken iPhone, just how insecure is it and what can you do about it? -- eWeek.
This week Apple issued an update to the iPod nano, bringing it to version 1.0.2. -- The Unofficial Apple Weblog.
Dreamweaver makes it easy to add Flash Video to your webpages, but if you want to display your video in QuickTime format, you'll have to take care of the various settings and other options yourself. In the following steps, you'll learn how to easily control and customize your QuickTime videos in Dreamweaver. (Note: This tutorial works for both Adobe Dreamweaver CS3 and CS4. The instructions will also work with Windows Media video and other formats, but the parameters will have to be adjusted for those formats.) -- Layers Magazine.
One of Snow Leopards more intriguing new features is text substitution, which lets the operating system replace defined sets of characters with other characters or symbols. For instance, typing (c) will generate the copyright symbol, ©. You can define your own shortcuts in the Language & Text System Preferences panel, on the Text tab. -- Macworld.
The love that consumers send Apple's way could flag if the company puts into place new advertising technology it has developed. In an application filed last year and made public last month by the United States Patent and Trademark Office, Apple is seeking a patent for technology that displays advertising on almost anything that has a screen of some kind: computers, phones, televisions, media players, game devices and other consumer electronics. -- New York Times.
The core thesis of this article is two-fold. One, that while Apple remains committed to cultivating its position in the legacy desktop/portable segment via the Mac, they understand that they will never be the leader of the PC market.
Two, given their dominance in mobile computing platforms, Apple will expand upon their iPhone strategy by attacking an "undefended hill" (an HP axiom) that's less hospitable to desktops/portables; namely, the bag-carrying consumer (think: purses, backpacks, briefcases, and the like.) -- O'Reilly Radar.
Cloud computing services, such as Amazon's EC2 and Google Apps, are booming. But are they secure enough? Friday's ACM Cloud Computing Security Workshop in Chicago was the first such event devoted specifically to cloud security. -- MIT Technology Review.
