The latest updates to all DVD Studio Pro 4 applications: DVD Studio Pro 5, Compressor 2, Apple Qmaster 2, and DVD Player 4 for standards compliance. DVD Studio Pro 4.0.3 updates compliance for the 1.0 HD DVD Video standard content specification to Tiger and Panther based users. Users with DVD Studio Pro 4.0 or later need to install this update to ensure their projects are compliant with the 1.0 HD DVD Video standard content specification
Analysts for UBS Investment Research this week emphasized confidence in Apple's long term strategy and updated their predictions on forthcoming products to include the possibility of a 1GB iPod nano digital music player. -- AppleInsider.
Move over, Jack Welch. From Apple to Pixar, Steve Jobs is showing why he's the model CEO for the 21st century. -- Fortune.
If you only have a few files then you could copy the files to some removable media but if your needs are greater you need better media and a dedicated backup program.-- Low End Mac.
Apple is working with Intel on UDI (unified display interface). The In-Stat research says that HDMI technology is phasing out DVI (Digital Visual Interface), the technology used to connect the current line of Apple Cinema Displays. Obviously, changes are in store for the world of computer displays in the coming years. -- Macsimum News.
If you're having difficulty entering a serial number when activating your professional software product, keep these tips in mind. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
It seems like everyday there is a new extension created for Firefox. Although some of these are quite cool, I try to avoid rushing to install them, as at the end of the day I don't actually need them.
It's a shame that everyone seems to focus on the newest and shiniest extensions, so I've decided to take it upon myself to promote some of the lesser known extensions that I believe really make Firefox a joy to use, rather than just something to show off to non-Firefox users who haven't seen the light yet. -- Everton Blair.
Many articles have been written about the grail, and several good templates exist. However, all the existing solutions involve sacrifices: proper source order, full-width footers, and lean markup are often compromised in the pursuit of this elusive layout.
A recent project has brought my personal grail quest to an end. The technique I'll describe will allow you to deploy the Holy Grail layout without compromising your code or your flexibility. -- A List Apart.
No, you haven't missed a joint announcement from Apple and Griffin. However, you might have missed this post on Make which links to ZapWizard's Flickr set detailing how he put a Mac mini, with accompanying LCD screen and mouse/keyboard, into his car. -- .
This video was made to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Apple computer making insanely great products. This is not a dupe, as the old link went offline. I've now increased bandwidth, etc. and it should run smoothly for quite a long time. -- unirrelevant.
Most of you know about the news page but you may not be aware that this news is also available as an RSS feed. Just click on the RSS link at the top of the news page, then bookmark the page or point your news reader at feed://oit.utk.edu/macvolplace/rss.xml. Then every time you go to this page you will see the latest news. In addition your news reader will work in the news archive as well. This makes news more searchable and accessible. Enjoy.
To get the most out of one charge of iPod's battery, install the latest iPod software, use the Hold switch, and keep iPod at room temperature. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
This battery firmware update is required for PowerBook G4 (15-inch Double-Layer SD) computers. You will find instructions below on how to determine if your PowerBook requires this update. This firmware update is required to keep your battery life up to specification, may recover battery life in some batteries that have developed short run times, and in some cases can recover batteries that are not recognized by the system. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
On Jan. 26, 2006, the US Patent & Trademark Office revealed a patent titled "Methods and apparatuses for operating a portable device based on an accelerometer." Although no assignee was presented in the patent application's template, a clear reference found under "description" does in fact provide patent number 6768066, which is an Apple patent published in 2004.
Just for the record, this patent presents 13 illustrations of a tablet PC and only 1 of a notebook. So make no mistake about it, this patent's focus is on an Apple tablet! -- Macsimumnews.
Keeping your old e-mail is useful for finding contacts that you don't have in your Address Book, referencing information, and leaving something for historians to piece your life together when they write your biography. But having a mail file that is too large can make things a little slow, so try this to keep less-frequently referenced (older) mail in a safe place, while not letting its presence effect your enjoyment of reading your new mail -- David Kadavy.
Congratulations! You have taken a brave step, left Windows and chosen Apple's OS X. Only, now what? What do you do? Where's the Start Menu? The any key? This is a straightforward guide to aid your move. -- Creation Robot (pdf).
As you're probably aware, using Mail's Bounce command (Message > Bounce) isn't effective against spammers because nearly all the spam your receive carries a forged "from" address-meaning that you'll likely bounce the message to an innocent address. Bouncing can be effective, however, when dealing with creeps and cranks who won't leave you alone. Yet if you're plagued by Cs and Cs, it's a bother to have to manually invoke the Bounce command. Here's a way to automate the process. -- Macworld.
Meet some former "think-different" company designers and engineers who've moved on -- and taken a lot of its innovative culture with them. -- BusinessWeek.
Just over a decade ago, Steve Jobs was considered washed-up. Now, given the astounding success of Apple and Pixar, he's setting a new bar for how to manage in the Digital Age. -- BusinessWeek.
Leveraging the power and simplicity of iCal, Apple's calendar software bundled with Mac OS X, High Priority allows you to create, edit, and remove your To Do items directly from the menu bar, without having to have iCal open. -- Stopdesign.
Investors think there is a battle raging for control of the digital home. They're wrong -- Apple has already won. -- CNNMoney.
The now biggest shareholder at Disney, Steve Jobs, is described by Business Week as redefining the job of being a CEO. -- BusinessWeek.
More Internet is a preference pane that allows you to change your preferred "helper application" for any of the Internet Protocols your machine is aware of. For example when you click on a mailto link on a Web page I know want Entourage instead of Mail to come up. This lets you set that option.
Apple's Macintosh personal computers are becoming an increasingly popular choice for consumers, especially for those shopping online at mea-retailerAmazon.com, which this week lists Mac systems as occupying nine out of ten positions in its frequently updated "Top Sellers" listing for personal computer sales.
Due to the lack of developer interest, build machines, compilers and testing resources, the last mozilla.org software built for Mac OS 9 was Mozilla 1.2.1, released in December 2002. However, versions of our software that old are not recommended for security reasons. Therefore, for Mac OS 9 users, mozilla.org recommends iCab - which is, as far as we know, the only graphical browser currently maintained for Mac OS 9.
Bob gets into the nitty-gritty of wiretapping, and takes a moment to address the Pixar-Disney deal. -- I, Cringely.
Among 14 popular TV shows now available for download from the iTunes service under new deal between Apple and MTV Networks. -- c|net.
The merger agreement between the Walt Disney Co. and Pixar Animation Studios rests, in part, on whether Pixar's award-winning creative team agrees to work for the combined company, according to a securities filing made Thursday. -- c|net.
While Wall Street's reaction to Disney's purchase of Pixar has been mostly positive, BusinessWeek's Arik Hesseldahl warns in his latest Byte of the Apple column that Steve Jobs, Disney and Apple "should be mixed only carefully and in small doses, lest the resulting combination prove volatile.".
I finally found the secret: a bit of user data buried in the chapter track of the movie. If you really want the details on how to fix this issue by hand (it's quite complex), I wrote about it on my site. But I also reported my findings to the creator of the free Metadata Hootenanny which is, among other things, the easiest way to add chapter markers to a QuickTime movie. Within hours, he had updated the program to generate the magic atoms that make the chapter markers work in iDVD 5.
VersionTracker as developed a list of Mac Intel Universal applications. Of course a some point the list will disappear since everything will be universal and then the list of interest will be what is non-universal. Which will be very short indeed.
MacFixIt has posted some material on solutions to problems people are having with Mac OS X 10.4.x Tiger and Active Directory:
Over the past few days we've been covering a series of issues with Active Directory in conjunction with Mac OS X 10.4.4. There now appear a number of issues with Macs bound to Active Directory services and Mac OS X 10.4.x (Tiger).
Most of the issues center around login and password issues --- either rejection of correct login information or unexpected logouts from the Windows (or Mac) Active Directory service.
MacFixIt reader Jason Westlake describes an issue where pre-existing Macintosh-based Active Directory accounts have issues with login after the Windows Active Directory Server begins to enforce password restrictions -- such as a time-limit on static passwords (requiring the password to be changed in a certain number of days). Jason writes:
Our company's password policy says that passwords must change every 90 days and that an account will become locked out after three incorrect login attempts. I have approximately 45 Macs currently on a Windows 2000 Active Directory. At random times for no reason whatsoever, every user's AD account becomes locked out (not all at the same time). We know it happens when Entourage 2004 (with Exchange accounts) suddenly becomes unable to receive email. It gives the user a message saying the username or password is incorrect. All the Mac accounts have been created for a long time, but with no password policy enforced because Macs were not on AD and had no way to change passwords. Now that we're moving to AD, we're turning on the password policy for all the Macs (all PC users have it turned on from day
"They have all exhibited this problem. We created a new test account with password policy, which I logged into an Active Directory-bound Mac and left running for days with no such lock-outs. There's something with our Active Directory and the Macs that's causing this lock-out for all the previously created Mac accounts. It's not feasible to recreate all our Mac accounts in the Active Directory. All Active Directory-bound Macs are running Mac OS X Tiger 10.4.3 and Entourage 11.2.1. I've tried Mac OS X 10.4.4 on a couple machines, but it did not change anything."
Another user notes a strange issue with file transfer over Active Directory networks:
"The user logs into his Tiger machine with an Active Directory username and password, and an AFP server volume hosted on a Panther-based Xserve which is linked to an Active Directory server for usernames and passwords is auto-mounted via a login item and the same Active Directory password info. Any attempt to upload nested folders will fail with an error stating something to the effect of the user does not have sufficient access privileges to complete the operation.
"They can upload any number of files within the first level of the main folder being uploaded, but loading any folder that contains anything else halts the upload with the error message (not sure if this includes folders that are empty). The balked nested folder does get uploaded but nothing is in it. Funny enough, the user can then proceed to upload the contents of the balked folder directly into it on the server, so it's not like they don't actually have permissions to write to it, they just can't write multiple levels at one time. I have heard this same issue discussed on MacWindows regarding SMB volumes on Windows servers, but again this is an AFP share hosted by a Panther-based Xserve.
"If I create a local user on the Tiger machine the problem goes away, even though they are logging into the same server using the same Active Directory authenticated username and password. The only difference is the login process to the local machine is to a local account instead of an Active Directory authenticated account."
Another reader, Bruce Penno, reports issues with printing through Active Directory services. He writes:
"I get the 'Connection failed with error 'NT_STATUS_NO_MEMORY' error when trying to print to a printer queue requiring authentication hosted on a windows server and the printer has been set up on the Mac by choosing it from the Printer Browser and is listed as an Open Directory Connection.
"It seems that the Printer Browser mechanism does not allow for authentication.
"If the printer is chosen using the Windows Printing option found when you click 'More Printers...' you are given the opportunity to authenticate to the server. You can also set up an lpr printer with authentication."
In some cases, these issues can be resolved by simply unbinding the Mac OS X system from the Active Directory Server using Directory Services (in Applications/Utilities and an administrator account), restarting the problematic Mac, then re-binding it.
As noted in our separate Mac OS X 10.4.4 coverage, fix involves deleting then re-adding the Active Directory domain in Directory Access (located in Applications/Utilities). MacFixIt reader Allan Marcus writes:
"When I upgraded my Mac OS X Server to 10.4.4 (from 10.4.3) my Active Directory bound users could not authenticate either. I opened Directory Access, clicked on the Authentication tab, removed the Active Directory Domain, hit Apply, then added back the Active Directory Domain, hit Apply, and now it all works."
Confirmation for Active Directory fix
We've received confirmation from a number of readers that our initially posted fix for Active Directory issues wrought by Mac OS X 10.4.4 -- click on the Authentication tab, remove the Active Directory Domain, hit Apply, then add back the Active Directory Domain, hit Apply -- is a success in many cases. One reader writes:
"Good News! I can confirm that Allan's suggestion did fix our problem of not being able to change Active Directory passwords after the 10.4.4 upgrade. Before I tried Allan's suggestion, I tried 'unbinding' and 'rebinding' the machine to Active Directory which didn't work either."
A possible Active Directory fix
Over the past few days we've reported on problems using Active Directory services after updating to Mac OS X 10.4.4 (see our separate coverage) -- particularly with authentication (logging in).
MacFixIt reader Allan Marcus reports a fix that involves deleting then re-adding the Active Directory domain in Directory Access (located in Applications/Utilities). Allan writes:
"When I upgraded my Mac OS X Server to 10.4.4 (from 10.4.3) my Active Directory bound users could not authenticate either. I opened Directory Access, clicked on the Authentication tab, removed the Active Directory Domain, hit Apply, then added back the Active Directory Domain, hit Apply, and now it all works."
There is another source you might check. MacWindows has a Special Report: Integrating Macs and Microsoft Active Directory and it has a section on Tiger and AD.
A MacSpeedZone benchmarking article disputes earlier claims by Macworld that the machines are only 10-25% faster than their G5 predecessors.
When you are running two or more audio applications on your PowerBook G4 (15-inch Double-Layer SD) or PowerBook G4 (17-inch Double-Layer SD), the audio may intermittently stutter, echo, or skip backwards. This can happen even if one audio application isn't playing or you have the sound muted in the application (such as when playing a game).
This can involve any application that uses audio, such as QuickTime, iTunes, iDVD, and many third-party applications like games and audio applications.
To avoid this, run only one audio application at a time. If it looks like you only have one audio application running but the sound is still skipping or stuttering, check for hidden login items or startup items.
This document will be updated as more information becomes available. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
Logo Design Studio is a new suite of creative design tools includes over 300 customizable logo templates, 1200 unique logo objects, a slogan/tagline library, and other object and text tools.
Many reviewers have given Apple a pretty good thrashing over its new professional photography software, Aperture. After delving into Aperture, Scott Bourne has come to some conclusions about where the critics went wrong, and he puts forth his ideas in this article. -- O'Reilly Digital Media.
All hail the CAT-5 killer! When 802.11n wireless hits the street, it should be stable and speedy enough to transmit full-motion HDTV throughout your home. -- Wired.
Ready to ramp up your multimedia empire? Get priceless videoblogging tips from the experts. Podcast by Webmonkey Radio.
Recent attempts at installing Windows XP have left users scratching their heads. Hopefully a $6000 prize will inspire creative thinking. Maybe Steve could do it? -- InformationWeek.
With his eyes completely covered with a seamless blackout blindfold, Jamie Dresser took iPods from audience members and went through the intricate technical process of opening the iPod casing without damage, removing the fading manufacture's battery, installing a higher capacity NewerTech NuPower replacement battery, and sealing the casing to a like-new appearance in perfect working order. -- Applelinks.
Belkin Corporation took the iLounge "Best of Show" Award for its new TuneTalk Stereo, a new voice recorder for iPod video. -- Applelinks.
Reviewing the new MacBook Pro, Yuval Kossovsky writes for Computerworld, I can tell you this laptop is fast. Really fast. I am hesitant to say it's exponentially faster than the G4 version, but subjectively this baby cooks.
Moore's Law is on track, the chip maker says, and it shows off 45-nanometer creations to prove it. -- c|net.
I cart my 700MHz G3 iBook to work everyday because I prefer it to the provided Wintel machine. One task that I occasionally do is batch image processing with GraphicConverter. These processes--and even image browsing--often slow my machine to a crawl. Out of curiosity, I decided to see if reading and writing the images with RAM Disk would save me time. Within a few minutes, I'd downloaded the freeware app Esperance DV, set up a disk image, and copied over the images to be processed from my hard drive. The increase in speed was amazing. -- Mac OS X Hints.
The new version of Keynote (found in iWork '06) adds some great features, including some new transitions between slides and builds for the way content enters a slide. Curiously, this new version seems to omit some too. Here is how to get them back. -- Mac OS X Hints.
Just an FYI, in the new MacBook Pro line Apple uses the ExpressCard/34 standard NOT the ExpressCard/54 standard. So when and if you buy/order an ExpressCard make sure to get the right one.
Apple could be leaving its Mac OS X users prone to attack if many newly and previously discovered bugs are not fixed. Software security specialists at Suresec recently dug through the coding of Mac OS X to find bugs that persist in current versions of both Intel- and PowerPC-based versions of Mac OS X--many of which were fixed in other companies' operating systems years ago, according to ZDnet Australia.
We've been waiting for this product ever since WiFi signals began flowing through the Mansion several years ago. The AuraGrid is a two part system which pumps your Internet connection from the router through your home's existing coax cable infrastructure and terminates in an antenna that eliminates those pesky dead spots in your WLAN coverage.
An excellent read detailing 30 ways to be more creative! -- gapingvoid.
In case anyone missed the switch during the last several years, Disney's acquisition of Pixar Animation Studios serves as the official ribbon-cutting ceremony for the era of digital animation. And Steve Jobs is the smiling man holding the scissors. But can the two outfits take each other to infinity and beyond? -- c|net.
...other than the processor info detailed under "About This Mac" there was no way to tell these "new" iMacs from the old ones. They looked identical, right down to the built-in iSight cameras. Even Mac OS X looked identical -- all the familiar iApps running, the Dock, Finder, etc. It was a Mac. A fast Mac. Apps launched instantly, Safari browsed the web quickly. Everything just worked.
I'll confess, I was slightly disappointed. I'm sure that's completely wrong. Transparently switching an entire platform to a new CPU is a major engineering feat and I should have been in awe. But the cold truth is that an Intel Mac is still just a Mac, regardless of the brain inside actually doing the calculations. -- MacOPINION.
Forbes reports on an interesting service called Stanford on iTunes which made its debut in October 2005.
In an unprecedented move, Stanford University is collaborating with Apple Computer to allow public access a wide range of lectures, speeches, debates and other university content through iTunes U.
There are presently 500 tracks available for free to all iTunes users. The Stanford iTunes section is only available from a direct link on the Stanford iTunes site.
Of interest to Mac users, they have recently added the full video of the Steve Jobs 2005 Commencement Speech at Stanford (iTunes link). A transcript of the speech was previously posted in June 2005.
The Stanford service appears to be a part of a larger initiative by Apple called iTunes University. The service from Apple offers universities the ability to deliver educational content for free.
It's the most powerful way to manage a broad range of audio or video content and make it available quickly and easily to students, faculty, and staff.
Macworld UK reports that it's 22 years since Apple first screened its epoch-defining 1984 ad for the original Macintosh at the Super Bowl. "On January 24, Apple Computer will introduce Macintosh. And you'll see why 1984 won't be like 1984," the ad declared. "The $2,495 Mac introduced an all-new innovation: 'Users tell Macintosh what to do simply by moving a 'mouse' - a small pointing device - to select among functions listed in menus and represented by pictorial symbols on the screen,' the company said."
ComputerWorld reports on a major shift in IBM's Notes for Mac strategy. The company unveiled plans at the Lotusphere 2006 conference for a vastly improved Mac version. IBM's Lotus Development Corp. unit has offered its Lotus Notes collaboration application for Apple Computer Inc.'s Macintosh hardware for years, but the software never included the depth of features available to Microsoft Windows users -- and it lacked much of the familiar Mac desktop look and feel. Those shortcomings, however, may soon be history.
JNI libraries built for PowerPC-based Macintosh computers are not loaded under Rosetta because the Java Virtual Machine has already launched without Rosetta. Java applications fail on Intel-based Macs when trying to load PowerPC-only binaries.
This means that if an application is both a native launcher of the JVM, and loads JNI libraries, which per that Q&A are the two things which will cause a Java app to fail on an Intel Mac until it is recompiled.
So on day-one everything may not run on the Intel-Macs. The updates are on the way, since the entire line will be moved by the end of the year, software companies will be very motivated to get the fixes out.
Apple today added more exclusive Disney content to the iTunes Music Store, following the announcement of Disney buyout of Pixar.
It's official. The first Intel Macs were announced on January 10 at Macworld Expo. An Intel-based iMac is already shipping and a 15" MacBook Pro will ship next month. Perhaps you are already chomping at the bit, anxious to get one of these new speed demons for yourself. I understand. In fact, I ordered a new iMac the same day they were announced. But it's my job to jump into the deep end of the new technology pool. Before you rush out and order a new Mac, take a deep breath, pause and consider the following. -- Ted Landau.
Apple has improved its iTunes U service that lets colleges and universities take advantage of the iTunes Music Store's content management system to distribute educational recordings to students and faculty. -- The iPod Observer.
Got a new computer? Because your iPod contains a high-capacity hard drive, you can use it to move all your music from your old computer to the new one. Note that you can't transfer songs from the iPod library to iTunes, so you'll need to follow the steps below to use iPod as a hard disk to transfer music files from one computer to another. Once you have the files transferred, you'll need to authorize any iTunes Music Store content. If you won't be using your old computer, you'll want to deauthorize it. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
On Jan. 19, the US Patent & Trademark Office revealed two patents granted to Apple: "Method and system for discovering a power source on a peripheral bus" and "Publishing, browsing, rating and purchasing of groups of media items." Patent 20060015378: Publishing, browsing, rating and purchasing of groups of media items. -- Macsimum News.
Now researchers are looking at ways to exploit lasers with chaotically fluctuating signals, to add an extra layer of privacy to messages sent over fiber-optic lines. -- Technology Review.
Smart folders disguise Tiger's convenient and dynamic Spotlight searches as good old-fashioned folders. You can use a smart folder to keep track of almost anything-from all the documents you've opened this week to every Excel file you've highlighted with a red label.
Even better, smart folders give you access to hidden metadata and advanced Spotlight features, so you can find files that would elude conventional searches. Learn to set up a search string just right, and smart folders can reduce your need to organize. -- Macworld.
If you work with any kind of sensitive material-from trade secrets to love letters-you've probably wished for a way to block access to your Mac the minute you stand up. There are many ways to do this, from the obvious to the obscure. -- Macworld.
David Pogue over at the New York Times says the reasons Apple switched to Intel chips for its Macintosh computers: speed, heat and the death of the Megahertz Myth.
Spam, spyware and identity theft are only a taste of how exposed we have all willingly become as we enjoy the benefits of the networked world. -- New York Times.
An article in The Orlando Sentinel by Linda Shrieves asks if the iPod generation has effectively isolated themselves from society and potentially done irreparable harm to their communication skills.
Like many of you, I too am a paid .Mac user, and I have been for a couple of years now. But if it weren't for all of the pain involved in transitioning from one e-mail address to another, I wouldn't renew it. Heck, I might just chock up the loss of time and people I may never get back into contact with again and still not renew it -- but I'll just be totally honest here and tell you that I haven't decided yet. -- O'Reilly Developer Weblogs.
There's some pretty interesting stuff on Google Video. In this article, Erica Sadun shows you how to download videos, convert them to an iPod-friendly format, and load them onto your new 5G video iPod. -- O'Reilly MacDevCenter.
IBM unveiled new speech recognition technology today that can comprehend the nuances of spoken English, translate it on the fly, and even create on-the-fly subtitles for foreign-language television programs.
USA Today is reporting on a trend of selling iPods on eBay which are preloaded with music and movies. This raises interesting questions about the legality of the files, including those that offer seemingly legitimate services of transcoding DVDs for the iPod video (while selling you the DVD disc as well).
Major figures at Sun and Google -- including Vinton Cerf, one of the inventors of the Internet and now Google's Chief Internet Evangelist -- are backing a new academic anti-malware initiative that aims to spotlight spyware purveyors and ultimately give besieged computer owners simple technologies to guide their Web surfing and downloading decisions. -- MIT Technology Review.
Steve Jobs is worshipped and admired like the cultural icons he's used in his marketing campaigns. But on the face of it, he's little more than a greedy tycoon. -- Wired.
Some of you may just be reading the news and are not aware of what is on the site. So I plan to take you on a tour of MacVolPlace showing you what is here.
Under the UT link are University of Tennessee Resources for Mac users. Among them are:
So you might want to take a look.
Apple claims that its new Photocasting feature uses "industry standard" RSS, but what do they really mean by that? -- Ars Technica.
"Journaling" is a feature that helps protect the file system against power outages or hardware component failures, reducing the need for repairs. Journaling was first introduced in Mac OS X Server 10.2.2, then to the non-server OS in Mac OS X 10.3 Panther. This document explains some of the benefits of using thi
