Apple on Tuesday graced its affordable line of iPod shuffle digital music players with a fresh array of hues, including orange -- a first for the iPod family. -- Appleinsider.
Apple on Tuesday put up for sale a highly controversial software patch that will let owners of Intel Core 2 Duo Processor-based Macs activate next-generation wireless technologies hidden inside their computers.
The company recommends that customers check to make sure that their Mac does not already have the 802.11n enabler installed before purchasing the software patch. To do so, Intel Mac owners should open the "Network Utility" application (found in the Applications > Utilities folder), choose "Network Interface (en1)" under the "Info" tab, and then inspect the information provided under "Model: Wireless Network Adapter." If it says "(802.11a/b/g/n)," the Mac already has the 802.11n enabler installed. If it says (802.11a/b/g), the Mac does not have the 802.11n enabler installed. -- Apple.
If you want to run Windows Vista on your Mac under virtualization, better be ready to pony up the big bucks. -- Ars Technica.
There is a virus being passed around electronically, orally, and by hand. This virus is called Worm-Overload-Recreational-Killer (WORK).
If you receive WORK from any of your colleagues, your boss, or anyone else via any means DO NOT TOUCH IT. This virus will wipe out your private life completely.
If you should come into contact with WORK put your jacket on and take two good friends to the nearest grocery store. Purchase the antidote known as Work-Isolating-Neutralizer-Extract (WINE) or Bothersome-Employer-Elimination-Rebooter (BEER). Take the antidote repeatedly until WORK has been completely eliminated from your system.
You should forward this warning to 5 friends. If you do not have 5 friends, you have already been infected and WORK is controlling your life.
A public service announcement from Ann Marie.
Security experts say phishing attacks are becoming more sophisticated, outnumber e-mails infected with malicious software. -- c|net.
After seeing how the Mac Pro ran Microsoft Vista better than OS X, we wondered how well the best of both worlds worked. Namely, using Parallels to run Vista alongside OS X. So we installed Vista using Parallels on our 15-inch, 2.33 GHz Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro. The good news is it did work, but the bad news is it didn't work very well. -- Gizmodo.
Interviewing David Pogue, CBS presents a consensus that Microsoft's Vista -- shipping today to consumers -- borrows too heavily from Mac OS X. "It kinda like hits you between the eyes," says Pogue. "I don't mean to imply that Vista is nothing but copies from Apple, but there are some certain similarities that are unmistakable." -- CBS NEWS.
A new service dubbed "SplashCast" debuted at DEMO 07.The new tool allows end-users to create 'channels' that combine audio, video, music, photos, text and RSS feeds. "These user-generated channels can be played and easily syndicated on any web site, blog, or social network page. The service, which is free and completely web-based, allows content to be enjoyed on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS and Linux computers. -- Splashcast Media.
NewerTech has begun shipping its USB 2.0 Universal Drive Adapter, which promises easier data transfer from unplugged computer hardware. It connects to 2.5-, 3.5- or 5.25-inch hard drives, and can also connect to optical drives, whether they use ATA, ATAPI, IDE or Serial ATA ports. Once the USB link is established, users can simply copy files off the external drive at speeds of up to 480Mbps. Virtually all major brands are said to be supported, from Fujitsu and IBM through to TEAC and Toshiba. Macs using the adapter must be running Mac OS 9.2 or later, including Mac OS X. Other World Computing is offering the drive adapter for $25.
Microsoft Windows Vista is gonna be with us for a long time. It's a fine operating system, so that's good news. Still, riding shotgun with all of Vista's charms are its many little annoyances. Here are nine that stick in my craw. -- PC Magazine.
Microsoft likely shifted its approach to Vista's development in the wake of Mac OS X Tiger's first appearance. Obtained as part of a public disclosure in an Iowa antitrust case against the Redmond developer, the messages indicated conversations between the company's technology evangelists and executives about Tiger in the wake of its June 2004 unveiling at Apple's WWDC conference. In at least one case, evangelists recommended changes to Vista's development based on what had been seen at the conference. -- Information Week.
In this, the third and final part of this series, I look at setting up satellite Internet on a Mac. I recently had such a service installed at my home office via HughesNet. So far we've looked at the costs in Part I and the modem itself in Part II. So how do you ago about implementing it? -- Macsimum News.
Recently, I did a three-part series on setting up satellite Internet on a Mac for those who have no other recourse to broadband access. However, there's another, little-known option that may work for some folks.
My friend, Gerry Curry of Curry Systems & Consulting in Canada, has designed and established wireless high-speed Internet connections using standard WiFi equipment and highly directional antennas to extend the range of conventional wire-based connections such as DSL and cable. He uses equipment from a Canadian company called Explornet. -- Macsimum News.
Researchers at investment firm PiperJaffray on Tuesday delved into several uncertainties regarding Apple Inc's new iPhone handset, ranging from the economics of the Cingular/Apple partnership to the device's addressable market. -- AppleInsider.
it's not often you find a large collection of high-quality fonts, available free of charge. From where, you might ask? No less a source than Apple themselves. Just point your browser to Apple's Scriptable Applications - iTunes page, then click the Download the iTunes for Mac OS X script collection link. (You'll need Stuffit Expander to expand the archive.) -- Macworld.
At this point there isn't much I can tell you about Windows Vista that you probably haven't already heard, so consider this entirely subjective, but I really like Vista. I installed Vista through Apple's Bootcamp in order to test Office 2007 and have since converted that installation to a Parallels-based virtual machine. -- Wired.
The folks at iLounge have published a quick guide as to the differences between the original silver matchbook-sized iPod Shuffle and the new colored units released yesterday.
It's hard to say exactly which moment it was that we realized the iPod had taken over our entire civilization. But it might have been this one:
The day we first heard, last summer, that baseball players were using their iPods to do their pregame video studies -- as opposed to, say, their pregame Shakira video studies. -- ESPN.
Google Notifier is a program David Phillip Oster wrote that lets you know when there is new Gmail ready to be read in your inbox and when you have upcoming Google Calendar events. The basic features of Notifier are pretty obvious, but there are a few bits of trivia that Notifier users might be interested in. That's the purpose of this post. -- GoogleMac.
Reviewing Windows Vista for St. Paul Pioneer Press, Julio Ojeda-Zapata concludes, "Get a Mac with [Mac] OS X unless your home-computer needs are Windows-specific, or if the fine Media Center is a must for you. You likely won't regret a Vista-PC purchase, but I'm betting you'll enjoy a Mac much more."
The OpenOffice.org Project seeks volunteers and donations for its upcoming release of the native Aqua version. -- Ars Technica.
Zink, the Waltham, Mass.-based start-up, has created--with help from Polaroid--a way to print photographs or documents without ink or an ink cartridge. Without an ink cartridge, a printer can be reduced to the size of an iPod or smaller, said CEO Wendy Caswell. The controlling factor when it comes to printer size is whether you want 2 x 3 inch prints or 4 x 6 inch prints. Zink says it has two manufacturing partners lined up, and products based on its technology will come out later this year. -- c|net.
Apple's iPod Shuffle now comes in 5 different colors.
Computerworld takes a look at some of the third-party Mac-related announcements at Macworld Expo San Francisco 2007, largely overshadowed by the iPhone. At the MacWorld Expo earlier this month, I spent a lot of time walking the show floor looking for products that would be of interest to the enterprise user -- me. And while the big news from the show was Apple Inc. CEO Steve Jobs' announcement of the coming-soon iPhone, there were a lot of products and vendors that caught my eye.
Digit runs through a list of reasons why Vista may be the perturbing factor that drives a number of switchers to Mac OS X.
The Harvard Extension School today announced the release of select course content for free through Apple's iTunes U service. The school is providing free public access to video previews of 15 of the 50 Harvard Extension School distance education courses that are available this spring covering the fields of computer science, management, environmental science, history, and the liberal arts. Each 10-15 minute video introduction gives viewers a virtual taste of the Harvard classroom and the opportunity to experience Harvard Extension School distance education, according to the school. Audio of each complete two-hour introductory lecture is also available for via digital download, and courses are taught by distinguished faculty from Harvard and other universities as well as working professionals who bring their expertise to the classroom. The Harvard Extension School is offering online registration for complete courses through February 4th.
LithiumCorp has released the first public beta of its Xserve RAID monitoring plug-in, a third-party monitoring option for Apple's Xserve RAID solution. The plug-in monitors controllers, drivers, arrays, blowers, power supplies, and more. Monitoring drive status reports whether the drive is online or offline, its RAID membership, SMART status, rebuild status, the drive vendor, SMART firmware, bad-block counts, and re-map counts.
Two Apple patents have appeared at the US Patent & Trademark Office. One (number 7,171,570) is for a "method and apparatus for selectively increasing the operating speed of an electronic circuit." The other (7,171,674) is for a method and apparatus for "just-in-time dynamic loading and unloading of computer software libraries." -- Macsimum News.
I've covered a number of products in Mac Gems that extend Mail's capabilities, Some, such as MailTags, Mail Act-On, and MailEnhancer, add significant new features, whereas others, such as Letterbox and DockStar, simply add viewing enhancements that make Mail more useable. Today's Gems are somewhere in between; they add new features, but ones that are so simple they look like they've always been there--and likely should have been. -- Macworld.
Ecamm Network has released an updated version of iChatUSBCam, their video conferencing software that enables Mac to work with USB webcams. It costs $9.95, and updates are free. A demo is available.
iChatUSBCam is an add-on for iChat AV that enables your Mac to support USB-based webcams in addition to the iSight or other DV cameras. It also works on Macs that would otherwise fall below Apple's system requirements for video conferencing with iChat AV.
The new 2.2 release adds support for many new Logitech USB webcams. Support for video devices with multiple inputs has been added, and Italian and Swedish localization is new. other fixes and enhancements have also been made.
A list of supported cameras is online.
A reader asks O'Reilly Network's Todd Ogasawara about running Visio under Parallels Desktop for the Mac. Todd provides a very through response. -- O'Reilly MacDevCenter.
MySQL CEO, Marten Mickos, has revealed to CBRonline that Oracle has threatened to provide support for MySQL and is already distributing the open source database. "They have hinted to us that they will," said Mickos, indicating that the database giant is planning to repeat its October 2006 Unbreakable Linux plan, which saw it undercut Red Hat with enterprise Linux support. Despite the competitive threat, Mickos is unmoved. "I hope they do that," he said, noting that it would be seen as an endorsement of the open source database."
The configuration manuals for the new 802.11n-based AirPort Extreme Base Station were posted last week on Apple's support Web site, and they offer some insight into whether you should immediately purchase the new equipment or not. (See "AirPort Extreme Updated," 2007-01-15.) Most tellingly, one of the manuals shows that 802.11n's highest bandwidth modes may not be available in most people's preferred network configuration. -- TidBITS.
With Amit Singh's release of MacFUSE at Macworld Expo 2007, the Mac now embraces a much broader array of file systems, improving cross-platform compatibility, network connectivity, security, and convenient integration with a variety of online services. In short, MacFUSE promises to let Mac users access foreign file systems - such as NTFS, Flickr, Gmail, or even an RSS feed - as though they're normal disks in the Finder. To see MacFUSE in action, watch Amit's video demonstration. -- TidBITS.
Intel Corp. has taken the wraps off of a new 45 nanometer processor technology that could be a cure-all for performance and power roadblocks threatening to frustrate the personal computer industry over next few years -- and a reality in shipping Macs by the end of 2007.
Known today only as "Penryn," the design uses a blend of hafnium and other rare metals in its transistors to keep the flow of electricity in check, reducing the amount of power leakage by as much as ten times over today's Core 2 and Xeon processors. -- Appleinsider.
At D-Fuse, concept rules. Uprooting convention, the London-based studio mixes motion and still imagery, music and video, and anything else you can imagine to form a new kind of design expression. -- Apple.
This weekend Apple posted six new Get A Mac ads, filmed specifically for the UK market. The ads feature actors David Mitchell and Robert Webb, known as the British comedy act Mitchell and Webb. Most of the ads (but not all) seem to be remakes of the original American versions.
Copilot is available for the Mac today for the first time with version 2.0. It allows you to remotely access another computer without having to configure lots of stuff on the client machine. Good for family members! -- Ars Technica.
Adobe says it has released the full PDF 1.7 spec to the Association for Information and Image Management, which will convert it into an ISO standard. Interestingly, Adobe's announcement precedes the public release of both Vista and Office 2007 -- both of which implement XPM, the so-called "PDF killer" -- by one day. -- Linux-Watch.
Learn which power adapter, power cord and plug are appropriate for which PowerBook, iBook, MacBook Pro and MacBook computers. Keep in mind that size, shape, and color of replacement adapters and cords may vary.
Note: This document applies only to the United States. Part numbers are different in other locations. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
Is your iBook, PowerBook G4 or MacBook Pro power adapter not working correctly? This article will tell you what you can do if you experience one or more of the following issues:
US Today reports that Verizon Wireless rejected Apple's offer to carry the iPhone exclusively due to Apple's terms.
According to the article, Apple wanted "a percentage of the monthly cellphone fees, say over how and where iPhones could be sold and control of the relationship with iPhone customers."
This included limited distribution to Apple Stores and Verizon stores only, leaving Wal-Mart, Best Buy and other Verizon distributors out of the loop. Apple also reportedly insisted on "sole discretion over whether to replace or repair the phone" with regard to customer service.
Learn to troubleshoot common AirPort issues. If, after following the steps, your issue is not resolved, try searching the Knowledge Base for more specific information.
This guide offers troubleshooting advice for an existing AirPort network. If you are setting up a network for the first time, try using the AirPort Setup Assistant or the AirPort Utility in assisted mode. For more complex networks, see the Designing AirPort Networks document included on your AirPort Installation CD-ROM disc. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
MacFixIt is now shipping the 2006 edition of the MacFixIt "Year of Fixes" archive CD. The disc offers a packaged installer that places all of the troubleshooting information published on MacFixIt from 2004 through 2006 on your Mac as an Apple Help File. This means you can search through our past 3 years of fixes without having to visit the Web site -- a boon in the event of a network outage or browser launching issue. In fact, we've made tutorials for resolving network connectivity issues and application launch problems accessible on the help index page.
There are numerous benefits to Apple-branded (AirPort) wireless routers. They offer native support for AppleTalk devices, are easily configured with Mac OS X applications (AirPort Admin Utility and AirPort Setup Assistant), are generally the most reliable performers when used in conjunction with AirPort-equipped Macs, and offer special functionality like AirTunes audio streaming in the case of the AirPort Express or network-attached storage in the case of the second-generation AirPort Extreme.
There is also one significant downside to AirPort Base stations: cost. Though it's difficult to put a dollar value on the additional functionality and ease-of-setup offered by Apple's hardware, users who strictly need wireless access to a network service (such as a Cable or DSL modem) can find well-functioning, Mac-compatible routers for prices significantly lower than AirPort Base stations.
As such, a significant portion of Mac users have opted for third-party wireless routers as their access points. Not all third-party routers are created equal, however. Some offer access to networked AppleTalk devices, others do not. Some provide excellent Mac support and documentation, others' manufacturers will not engage in technical support calls that mention Macs. Perhaps most importantly, some routers are potentially more prone to exhibit stability issues -- including lapses in network connectivity (dropouts).
In this guide (a culmination of third-party wireless coverage in the past few weeks) we will look at some of the fundamentals for configuring third-party wireless routers from Macs, then examine the quality of routers in terms of support/documentation for Mac OS X, stability of connections and AppleTalk support.
Topics include:
A c|net editor opines that Steve Jobs' potential involvement in stock option irregularities are by far the biggest challenge currently facing the company.
When the Fortune article broke the news about SWsoft acquiring Parallels almost three years ago in a very "quiet" transaction, it also spoke about the possibilities of having a virtualized Mac OS X instance in a virtual machine. -- InfoWorld.
Our columnist says that despite the new Windows Vista operating system, if you can afford it, buy a Mac. -- BusinessWeek.
Microsoft's Vista hits store shelves on Tuesday and although it's got a kicking in the press, there's one group that actually seems quite excited about it -- Mac users.
At Macworld, the most crowded booths belonged to Parallels Inc. and VMWare, two software companies that help run Windows a Mac. It was quite remarkable: both were mobbed.
Funnily enough, Macs are great machines for running Vista. They're new, they're fast and they exceed Vista's demanding specs. They can even run OS X and Windows at the same time. -- Cult of Mac Blog.
Microsoft's internal feelings can only remain hidden for so long, as we learn today from a few emails exchanged amongst top Microsoft executives. One exec, Lenn Pryor, at the time Director of Platform Evangelism, wrote to some colleagues:
Tonight I got on corpnet, hooked up Mail.app to my Exchange server and then downloaded all of my mail into the local file store. I did system wide queries against docs, contacts, apps, photos, music, and ... my Microsoft email on a Mac. It was [expletive] amazing. It is like I just got a free pass to Longhorn land today.
Jim Allchin was also impressed, writing in an email of Spotlight: "I don't believe we will have search this fast." If you glance through the PDFs of the emails exchanged by these men, you will also learn that they were extremely possessive of their Tiger install discs, even refusing to share them.
It's just a little more proof that Apple really is leap-frogging over Microsoft, and that Vista is really their answer to Tiger (which is practically obsolete with Leopard on the horizon). -- MacUser.
While sifting through my sea of NetNewsWire feeds, I couldn't help but see this story on PC World on 15 reasons to switch to Vista. After reading through it, I couldn't help but think that OS X has all of those features, and more! So, following the same reasons as the PC World story, here's 15 reasons why you should switch to OS X and not Vista: -- MacUser.
First, I need to disclaimer this blog post by saying that I am under an NDA until Leopard releases to the public, so the details of what I saw are not available. However, I can say a few things and reveal some details (details that I have already found on public sites and from slides during the WWDC keynotes, etc). -- The .NET Addict's Blog.
So I'm still working on figuring out how to streamline the process of exporting from EyeTV into iTunes. Yes, in theory, you should only have to click iPod or Export let EyeTV do all the work. -- O'Reilly MacDevCenter.
Adobe engineers have been very busy during the final phases of Lightroom's development. In addition to many performance and UI refinements, the 1.0 version that ships on Feb. 19, 2007 includes some great new features that I want to introduce you to today. -- O'Reilly Digital Media.
AirPort Extreme Update 2007-001 is recommended for all Intel-based Macintosh computers and provides compatibility with AirPort Extreme base stations and networks. An out-of-bounds memory read may occur while handling wireless frames. An attacker in local proximity may be able to trigger a system crash by sending a maliciously-crafted frame to an affected system. This issue affects the Core Duo version of Mac mini, MacBook, and MacBook Pro computers equipped with wireless. Other systems, including the Core 2 Duo versions are not affected. This update addresses the issue by performing additional validation of wireless frames.
Thursday's hot iPhone rumor comes compliments of CNBC analyst Jim Cramer, who suggests Cingular/ATT will sidestep subsidization of the Apple handset by giving away lengthy service contracts.
"In its call, the company made it very clear that it's going to use Apple's iPhone to get customers from Verizon Wireless by giving away its service for a year and a half to those customers who buy the phone," Cramer explained in his blog posting at TheStreet.com.
The CNBC "Mad Money" host believes the strategy will help the wireless carrier court a flurry of new subscribers while maintaining requests from Apple not to discount the cost of the $499 and $599 mobile devices.
AirPort makes getting connected easy--without the wires. With AirPort, you can connect to the Internet, email, local servers, and shared printers without the hassle of being tethered to a short leash.
If you've got an AirPort card and access to a wireless network, regardless if it's an AirPort network or something else, we show you how to connect your Mac to a wireless network and get online, as well as how to troubleshoot issues if you come across any. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
Learn to troubleshoot common AirPort issues. If, after following the steps, your issue is not resolved, try searching the Knowledge Base for more specific information.
This guide offers troubleshooting advice for an existing AirPort network. If you are setting up a network for the first time, try using the AirPort Setup Assistant or the AirPort Utility in assisted mode. For more complex networks, see the Designing AirPort Networks document included on your AirPort Installation CD-ROM disc. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
This document contains a table of AirPort software available from Apple, and the operating systems and AirPort Base Stations you can use with each version. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
Learn how to reset an AirPort Extreme Base Station.
Note: This article pertains to the AirPort Extreme Base Station. If you have the earlier AirPort Base Station (Dual Ethernet), see Resetting the AirPort Base Station (Dual Ethernet). If you have the original AirPort Base Station (Graphite), see Resetting the AirPort Base Station (Graphite).
The reset button is used for one of two purposes: If you forget your base station password, do a soft reset. Do a hard reset if the base station stops responding, has network accessibility issues, or needs to be returned to a default configuration. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
The Gmail File System (GmailFS) -- a file system for using your Gmail account as a disk drive -- can now work on OS X thanks to the recent release of MacFUSE.
Jean-Matthieu has posted details on how to get the system running on the Mac, and it appears to work OK (with a few minor issues).
As part of MacFixIt's Mac OS X 10.4.8 Special Report, they noted that some users experience issues with wireless connectivity (generally with AirPort-equipped Macs) after applying the update. This is relatively common occurrence with incremental Mac OS X updates, as most make at least minor modifications to both networking architecture and/or AirPort-related files.
Specific to Mac OS X 10.4.8, users experienced inability to automatically reconnect to wireless networks when starting up or waking from sleep, poor throughput, or an inability to connect.
Their Special Report offers a number of potential workarounds for these problems, including deletion and re-establishment of all preferred wireless networks, removal of third-party wireless monitoring utilities and more.
Now some readers are reporting success with a fix not mentioned in the initial report.
Try deleting the following files from the ~/Library/Preferences/ directory (this is the Library directory within your User folder):
In addition, delete any other files that have are named as such: com.apple.internetconfig[...]
Yesterday I started a series on satellite Internet on the Mac, using my newly installed broadband satellite through HughesNet. Part 1 looked at the costs; today we'll look at the modem itself: the HughesNet HN7000S modem, which obviously receives and transmits data over the satellite through the HughesNet network. -- Macsimum News.
John Maisey has written an apple-scripted plugin for Mail.app, You're Invited, that makes working with Outlook users easier. You're Invited! is a fix to allow Apple Mail to send Outlook Meeting Invitations to iCal correctly. The invitations you receive will be sent to iCal as they arrive in your Mail inbox, ready for your response. -- Hawk Wings.
MacInTouch reader Nick Batzdorf asks:
At about 200 a day now, the spams with embedded pictures containing stock tips or penis enlargement devices are way out of control - to the point that it's not feasible to use my Palm Treo to check email. But my question is about Apple Mail.
These pictures aren't HTML, right? So there's no way of declining any email with a picture in it?
Any suggestions?
And MacInTouch reader Dez Chesterfield answers:
To answer Nick Batzdorf's question about the 'picture' spam emails, create a new Rule, set 'If' to 'all', and in the condition, Edit Header List, and add a custom header 'Content-Type'. Select that header in the condition, Contains, 'multipart/related'.
To reduce false positives, set further conditions for 'Sender is not in my Address Book' and 'Sender is not in my Previous Recipients'.
I have only had one false positive from this rule.
Florian Beer has posted two tips which stop Mail.app syncing Exchange's public folders.
One of them has been covered on Hawk Wings before, but the other one brings the list of possible work-arounds to four -- Hawk Wings.
Back in October my friend Jesper wrote a nifty little utility called ThisService. You give ThisService a script -- either AppleScript or any Unix scripting language such as Perl, Python, or Ruby -- and it generates a system-wide service based on that script, right there in the Services menu, available in any app. No Xcode or Cocoa required. You just write the script.
When I linked to it, I promised a couple of example scripts. I'm a few months late, but here we go. -- Daring Fireball.
When I look at the technology Apple has announced, both in Leopard and the iPhone, there are some natural opportunities for Apple to differentiate its products and delight it customers with Leopard. Here are some of Blackfriars' speculations on Leopard's secret features.
The Apple Xserve RAID now ships with 750GB drive modules, which increases the maximum capacity of each RAID unit now to 10.5TB. While that's certainly great news, there's one other part of the update that might not be as pleasing to fans of the fibre channel storage devices.
As part of the update, Apple also released Xserve RAID Admin Tools 1.5.1, which includes a new RAID Admin utility and the new firmware needed by current units to recognize the newer drive modules. The surprising change is in RAID Admin, which no longer has a LUN Masking configuration option. -- O'Reilly MacDevCenter.
The next time you make a print of your favorite photo, don't settle for a measly 8 by 10 inches. Supersize it. Macworld shows you how to turn a favorite snapshot into a stunning 16-by-20-inch or larger print--all for less than the cost of a generic print at the poster store. -- Macworld.
Download copies from Apple's Product Documentation site. There are two manuals: a general users' guide "AirPort Extreme (802.11n) Setup Guide (Manual)" and a more involved "Designing Airport Extreme 802.11n Networks."
I stumbled upon what seems to me to be real first Apple Phone with a date patent listed as December 10, 1985 (more than a quarter of a century old) and filed in 1982. You'll note in the diagram reproduced below that unlike the Apple iPhone introduced in 2007, the 1985 version was a flip-phone. :-) -- O'Reilly MacDevCenter.
Experts at the financial research firm Piper Jaffray said on Wednesday that a wave of positive feedback on the Photoshop CS3 beta is a harbinger of much stronger Mac sales waiting in the wings. -- Appleinsider.
Samsung Electronics has added iPhone to a rapidly expanding list of consumer electronics devices from Apple Inc. for which it supplies the primary SoC, AppleInsider has learned. -- Appleinsider.
High-def endoscopy images and videos on Macs allow physicians at the Palo Alto Veteran's Hospital to see subtle indications of early cancer lesions, improving their ability to make timely diagnoses. -- Apple.
Need to see what's inside more than one folder while in List view? Do it the fast way--Command-click on all the folders you want to expand, then press Command-Right Arrow. All the folders will expand at once.
If the file you're looking for isn't there, just press Command-Left Arrow (you can do that, because your folders are still highlighted) to quickly collapse them all again.
Some users are experiencing problems with Microsoft Office saying that fonts are corrupt when Apple's Font Book says they are not (they aren't, it's a Microsoft issue.)
Why Microsoft thinks that they can handle fonts better than OS X, I'll never know. It also makes me wonder what exactly this tool is doing!
For additional information on this topic check out:
Andy Hertzfeld recounts how Apple adopted the unusual symbol used for the menu command key. -- Folklore.
Blu-ray Disc (BD) technology, with its ability to record to 25GB single-layer and 50GB dual-layer discs, is the next generation in optical disc storage and MCE Technologies has brought it to the Mac. -- Applelinks.
There is an Virex update issued 01/24/07. Remember, you must download and install Virex DAT updates on OS X. Mac OS X Virex eUpdate does not work.
RealMoney columnist and financial analyst Jim Cramer doesn't see a problem with the iPhone's US$500 price tag and six month wait. In fact, he thinks Apple's iPhone is AT&T's secret weapon in the cellular service war. -- iPod Observer.
CRN reports that Apple is making minor modifications to Objective-C for Leopard. "Developer Wolf Paulus, in discussing one of those briefings last week in L.A., writes: 'All of the great and compelling desktop applications for the Mac are written in Objective-C, a somewhat strange language but still very similar to C and C++. And for the first time in a very long time, the Objective-C language is being changed and not in a small way [...] Some of the new Objective-C features will only be available in the 64-bit version, meaning the compiled code will only run on PowerPC-G5 and Intel-Core-2-Duo powered Macs, leaving all those 1st generation Intel Macs (Core-Solo and Core-Duo) in dark . . there had to be a reason why the Mac Mini and the iMac have the processor on a socket instead of being directly soldered onto the board."
OnScreen Science has released three editions of OnScreen DNA 1.2, its interactive 3D visualization software designed to place understanding of the structure and workings of DNA within easy reach of Mac users.
OnScreen DNA Lite deals with the structural details of DNA, including its double helix geometry and chemical components and bonds.
OnScreen DNA adds 3D simulations of the critical DNA processes of replication and gene transcription.
OnScreen DNA Pro enables users to take control of those simulations by activating the proper enzymes and selecting and dragging into position the building blocks needed to construct a double helix.
The latest release of all three editions run natively on Intel-based Macs as Universal Binaries, and include minor bug fixes. The software requires Mac OS X 10.3.9 or later, with the Lite ($50), Standard ($150), and Pro ($200) editions available online.
I've had satellite Internet installed, and, after three days of test driving it, I'm pleased. It's not a cheap option, but some of us have few broadband choices. I live on a small road in a suburb of Nashville, TN, that, though only 15 minutes from a major mall, isn't serviced by DSL or cable. I can take advantage of Sprint wireless thanks to products such as the Franklin Wireless USB Modem, the first wireless broadband USB modem that supports the Mac. It's a great product, but I wanted something faster. So, after being dissed by DirecTV I turned to HughesNet. -- Macsimum News.
An Apple patent (number 20070019374) for a "disk drive media access system" has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. It relates generally to disk drives, and more particularly to disk drive media access systems such as access systems for optical disk drives in portable computers. Some of the images lead me to believe the technology involves portable Apple systems we haven't seen yet. -- Macsimum News.
Cisco Systems Inc.'s lawsuit against Apple Inc. over the use of the name iPhone is a "minor skirmish" that could have been avoided if Apple had been willing to negotiate, the International Herald Tribune reported on Thursday. -- Reuters.
The BBC asks its readers to respond regarding their computer's operating system (Linux, Mac OS X, Vista). Makes for interesting reading. -- BBC.
On January 25, the US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple's continuation patent application titled "Computer Interface Having a Virtual Single-Layer Mode for Viewing Overlapping Objects." Thank goodness that Apple decided to call this end user feature, Expose. -- MacNN.
The choices for writing tools on the Mac are varied and many, and subject to our tastes, needs, requirements, experience as computer users.
Most used in the business world is Microsoft Word, more for compatibility than love; understandable, given the cost and complexity of Word.
I have a special need and use something else and it will be a cold day on my behind before someone takes it from my Mac. -- Mac360.
On January 25, the US Patent & Trademark Office published two of Apple's patent applications respectfully titled "Access system for a portable device and Disk drive media access system." Apple's patents basically present us with an overview of future notebooks that will implement a new bottom side optical disk drive in an effort to create thinner, lighter and more economical notebooks. Apple introduces us to an invert icon mechanism and describes a mobile motion module in length. This report combines the highlights of both these patents. -- MacNN.
Whether you're a news nut or just like to visit certain Web sites a lot, RSS can help you easily access up-to-the-minute information. We have some tips to help you get the most out of this technology as well as a quick lesson in RSS 101. -- Macworld.
Slate.com has an article by Paul Collins explaining that the iTunes music store has thousands of tracks that you can't buy in the U.S. From the article: "The iTunes Music Store has a secret hiding in plain sight: Log out of your home account in the page's upper-right corner, switch the country setting at the bottom of the page to Japan [It does not say "Japan." It is a pictogram at the bottom of the list.], and you're dropped down a rabbit hole into a wonderland of great Japanese bands that you've never even heard of. And they're nowhere to be found on iTunes U.S.' The article goes on to mention a few workarounds if you want to purchase foreign tunes. But this brings up a good point -- why shouldn't iTunes be the great mythical omniscient music repository where all the world's music is available instantly? Is this simply a marketing decision?"
For the second year running, no U.S. city has made the list of the world's top Intelligent Communities of 2007, as selected by global think tank Intelligent Community Forum. The ICF selects the Intelligent Community list based on how advanced the communities are in deploying broadband, building a knowledge-based workforce, combining government and private-sector "digital inclusion," fostering innovation and marketing economic development. -- Network World.
The most dense computer memory circuit ever fabricated, capable of storing around 2,000 words in a unit the size of a white blood cell, was unveiled by scientists in California. The team of experts at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) who developed the 160-kilobit memory cell say it has a bit density of 100 gigabits per square centimeter, a new record. The cell is capable of storing a file the size of the United States' Declaration of Independence with room left over. -- AFP.
Mac OS X's built-in Address Book is about as unglamorous a utility as any you can name. Aside from the fact that having a system-wide database of contacts that's available to any application willing to hook into it is incredibly handy, very little about it could be described as interesting. It's dead boring, in fact. And yet, the other day, it surprised me. -- Subtraction.
Details of new features in FileMaker 9 have emerged ahead of its release, as engineers continue to polish functionality and keep the database software competitive. -- ThinkSecret.
Security Update 2007-001 is recommended for all users and improves QuickTime security. It plugs an exploit where QuickTime users visiting maliciously crafted websites could fall victim to arbitrary code execution.
The Xserve RAID Admin Tools 1.5.1 Update addresses overall reliability of the RAID Admin software and Xserve RAID firmware.
When Steve Jobs unveiled the iPod back in October, 2001, my first reaction was something like: "Whaaaaaat?! - a digital jukebox? But Apple is a computer company...."
So much for linear thinking. I soon came around to appreciating the genius of the iPod, and I'll not make the same error of non-cognition with the iPhone, which I anticipate will be another out-of-the-park home run for Apple. And Apple Inc. is no longer a computer company in the traditional sense, but rather a consumer electronics company that makes computers, along with iPods and iPhones, and Apple TVs. Whoda' thunk it? -- Applelinks.
One of the most underused features in Mac OS X is the use of "Smart Folders." So... what are they? In a nutshell, a Smart Folder contains items in the folder based on search criteria that you set in the preferences of the folder instead of grouping the contained items by location, like a regular folder. This makes it very easy to be organized. -- TechPwn.
There are some useful tools available for tracking what's happening on your Mac, but sometimes the old-school command line offers you exactly what you want to know in that special way that Unix pros just love. Enter GeekTool. -- The Mac Observer.
Parallels might be working on Mac OS X for generic Intel boxes Web Pro News reports that the company that makes Parallels is working on an upgrade to the software that will let Windows users theoretically run Mac OS X side-by-side with Windows on their generic Intel boxes. "Heresy! The only problem with that, as the article and others are more than happy to point out, is that Steve Jobs likes that idea about as much as Bill Gates likes the idea of open-sourcing Windows code. -- WebProNews.
The once-hapless wireless operator bounced back -- and landed the hyped Apple iPhone. Fortune has some background on the Apple-Cingular relationship that led to the iPhone deal.
An Apple patent (number 7,167,181) for a "deferred shading graphics pipeline processor having advanced features" has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. This invention relates to computing systems generally, to three-dimensional computer graphics, more particularly, and more most particularly to structure and method for a three-dimensional graphics processor implementing ffered shading and other enhanced features, according to Apple. -- Macsimum News.
Apple patents at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office seem to indicate upcoming telephonic and music-related products, as well as covering past and present products. Patent number 7,167,897 is for "accessories providing a telephone conference application one or more capabilities independent of the teleconference application." -- Macsimum News.
Here is an interview with the talented icon designer Jonas Rask from Denmark. Hopefully you will find it useful to have a bit of insight into his professional thinking and get to know him a bit better personally as well.
When I stumbled upon Jonas work some time ago on the net. I particularly fell in love with his highly detailed icons and the complexity of them. I wanted to know more about who he is and how these icons were created so I'll just had to ask him if he was willing to give an interview. Luckily he was more than happy to do the interview so here it is. -- creativebits.
I sometime complain about OS X, but it doesn't take much of playing with my Linux box to make me really appreciate OS X and heavens forbid even Windows XP. For those of you firmly in the Mac world and about to complain about Apple's next tariff, this might be educational. -- Applepeels.
Josh Pigford of The Apple Blog has found that one hindrance to his picking up keyboard shortcuts quickly was lack of documentation... or rather lack of easily accessible documentation. So he has provided an easy-access tools for becoming a browser power-user. Enjoy.
Apple on Tuesday updated its Xserve RAID enterprise storage product, giving it a capacity of up to 10.5TB. According to Apple, the new system lowers the cost per gigabyte of storage to $1.31. -- Macworld.
SoundTech Professional Audio on Tuesday announced the general availability of the LightSnake USB, an "intelligent" USB microphone cable that incorporates an embedded analog to digital converter and signal booster. It costs $69.99.
The ten-foot LightSnake cable connects with any standard microphone equipped with an XLR tip and jacks into an available USB slot on a Mac or PC, working without additional driver software on both Mac OS X and Mac OS 9, and various versions of Windows. It's intended for musicians or podcasters working with XLR-equipped microphones.
Last October, Apple published session videos of the 2006 World Wide Developers Conference on iTunes. Unfortunately, access to these videos requires the Leopard Early Start Kit, which, in turn, requires a paid subscription to the Apple Developer Connection. The 90-minute "Mac OS X State of the Union" feature, however, has now also been made available to those ADC members who have signed up for the free-of-charge Online Membership. Even if you're not developing software on the Mac, this video is well worth watching if you are interested in an up-to-date (as of August 2006) overview of the technical foundations of the Mac's OS.
If you don't have an ADC account yet (if you do, you will have seen the related email announcement already, anyway), go to the Apple Developer Connection website and sign up for the free ADC Online Membership. Then head over to the ADC on iTunes page and log in to bring up the ADC section in iTunes. You will find the video (500MB) and a PDF with the presentation slides under the "Mac OS X State of the Union" tab. -- O'Reilly MacDevCenter.
From the opening chime to the login window, there is quite a bit of activity going on behind the scenes during the Mac OS X boot process. Nowadays with newer versions of the OS, that process takes hardly any time at all. Old timers will remember the slow march of system extension icons in the paleolithic age, pre-OS X.
This page at kernelthread.com, "Mac OS X System Startup" uncovers the after-hitting-the-power stuff. A sample from the beginning:
Erica Sadun dives into Apple's sample code archive and shows how to modify MovieVideoChart to create a comic-book-like video layout tool. Learn a structured approach to taking advantage of the wealth of sample code that Apple provides for developers. -- O'Reilly MacDevCenter.
Recently, a couple articles caught my attention. Triggered by news of the lack of Java on the iPhone, these articles go on to address Java’s failure on the desktop in general. Check out Duncan Davidson's post here as well as Jens Alfke's here. In the spirit of these articles, I'd like to tell a story, one that many have not heard and that, after all these years, should be told. It's a story not only about what was, but about what might have been. -- Noodlings.
As many of you know, a little over a week ago Google announced the open sourcing of MacFUSE. FUSE allows functional file systems to be implemented in user-space programs, without the need to write any kernel code.
Amit already did all the hard work with MacFUSE; Greg Miller just wanted to play with it. He thought it might be cool to stick a file system interface on Spotlight, so in his free time he came up with SpotlightFS. It is basically a MacFUSE file system that creates true smart folders, where the folders' contents are dynamically generated by querying Spotlight. This differs from Finder's version of smart folders, which are really plist files with a .savedSearch file extension. Since SpotlightFS smart folders are true folders, they can be used from anywhere--including the command line!
Whether you're writing a simple article for a blog, piecing together the next blockbuster hit, or penning a 500 page romance novel, there are quite a few options for helping you get all of that information organized and drafted. There really are enough to chose from with a wide enough range of options that you're sure to find something to fit your needs. -- The Apple Blog.
An Apple patent (number 2007005674) for a "single-channel convolution in a vector processing computer system" has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. It relates generally to signal processing within a computer processor. More particularly, the present invention relates to convolution operations in a vector processing computer system. -- Macsimum News.
Gaining access to remote files that are normally only available via SSH, such as the output from cluster computations, using MacFuse was described by Dr. Drew McCormak at MacResearch.org on Monday. The technique involves "mounting" files from a remote system that will appear in the Mac OS X Finder as a mounted volume after MacFuse is installed and the proper mount command is issued.
The lines between the Mac OS and Windows are starting to blur. And that portends major changes going forward in the world of PCs. At MacWorld, a little company called Parallels won awards for the latest version of its hit product, which enables you to run both operating systems at the same time on a Macintosh. It's a major breakthrough. -- CNN.
As MacFixIt previously reported, Microsoft will drop support for Visual Basic macros in Office 2008 for Mac OS X. They subsequently reported that this state of affairs means that Office 2004 with the addition of an official converter for Open XML documents (due in beta form for Mac OS X this Spring) may remain the most cross-platform compatible version of Office in existence.
They have now confirmed with Microsoft representatives that macros will indeed survive the translation process offered by the converter. In other words, users will be able to run an Office 2007 for Windows documents with Visual Basic macros through the Mac OS X translator then open the documents in Office 2004 for Mac OS X and retain the macros.
As such, albeit far from ideal, running Office 2004 (either under Rosetta on Intel-based Macs or natively on PowerPC-based Macs) in tandem with the forthcoming translators will be the only option for users who absolutely need to retain compatibility with Visual Basic macros.
Parallels Software--which makes Parallels Desktop for Mac, a solution for running PC operating systems at the same time as Mac OS X (without re-booting) on Mactel systems--revealed today that it's controlled by SWsoft, a company that makes virtualization and automation software. -- Macsimum News.
The anti-spyware program MacScan 2.3 adds a notable feature that allows the user to scan and remove tracking cookies without deleting all their saved cookies. The definitions are updated just like the spyware definitions. MacScan's spyware library consists of keystroke loggers, trojan horses, and dialers.
The release of an application called ScopeBox, from Divergent Media, recently caught my eye. ScopeBox turns your Mac into a video-analysis tool that can measure a video signal's luminance and color values, among other things, to make sure that it conforms to broadcast standards. For the casual reader, a product like this is not particularly flashy; but for video professionals, accurate video scopes are like life preservers on a boat: when you need them, you need them, and nothing else will do. -- Macworld.
Documents that get moved around and saved in different applications, forwarded again and again, eventually pick up all kinds of ugly invisible characters which destroy the original formatting. Hard returns, unnecessary spaces, strange quote marks, and so on.
Even email messages pick up those very annoying forwarding characters (>) when messages are forwarded two, three, four times. Only when you want to clean up a messy document does the truth set in.
Sometimes it can take an hour to clean up a messy looking document. So here are some applications to help you get your text back to a clean state:
A new version of the Illinois Functional Web Accessibility Evaluator (FAE v. 0.9.2) is now available:
The FAE analyzes web resources for markup that is consistent with the use of CITES/DRES HTML Best Practices for development of functionally accessible web resources that also support interoperability.
Register for a free user account at:
http://fae.cita.uiuc.edu/register.php.
Benefits of user account:
New features in Version 0.9.2:
The Web may be the modern world's greatest non-natural resource, but it's not worth much when you can't find the information you need or the entertainment you want. Of course, you can hit pay dirt pretty often just by running a basic Google search. But as the Web grows larger every day, you can easily sink hours into frustrating failed searches. Refine your searches and get more from the Web by using these handy tips and tools. -- Macworld.
"For the major recording companies selling in the MP3 format would be a capitulation to the power of the Internet, which has destroyed their control over the worldwide distribution of music." - New York Times
Even Apple cannot prop up the record industry despite the success of the iPod. So now the backlash has come and DRM will most likely go to its grave. -- O'Reilly MacDevCenter.
Last week we tried to include everything that was known about the iPhone in "iPhone Seeks to Redefine the Mobile Phone" (2007-01-15) and "iTouched an iPhone" (2007-01-15). But what we held for this week is a look at all the questions that Apple has yet to answer satisfactorily. We shouldn't be too hard on Apple here; the iPhone isn't scheduled to ship until June 2007, and there's plenty of time for features to be added or changed. In fact, given that Glenn cast some significant doubt on Apple's claim that the pre-release announcement was necessary due to prevent the news from escaping from the FCC, we're thinking that Apple may have scheduled the iPhone announcement early both to collect feedback and because there wasn't much else to announce. -- TidBITS.
Apple's iPhone is still six months from store shelves, but the backlash has already begun. The biggest upset is that the iPhone will be a closed platform. It won't run software from anyone but Apple.
While Jobs is a control freak extraordinaire, the iPhone is closed for Jobs' stated reasons: stability, security and ease of use. He's exaggerating that one unruly app will take down the network, it can certainly take down a single phone. Just look what the open-platform approach has done to Windows (and, yes, Mac OS X too, to a lesser extent) -- it's a world of viruses, Trojans and spyware. -- Wired.
There is an Virex update issued 01/22/07. Remember, you must download and install Virex DAT updates on OS X. Mac OS X Virex eUpdate does not work.
The steering group responsible for shepherding the development of 802.11n, the high-speed successor to 802.11g, marks an important milestone in its development. -- Ars Technica.
New research suggests that one of the oldest known dyes, Prussian Blue, may be capable of being used as a next-generation data storage medium. -- Ars Technica.
Company didn't have to charge for upgrade, but it would have had to defer revenue from notebooks sold with the chip if it didn't. -- c|net.
All iPod models have an internal, nonremovable, lithium-based rechargeable battery. A fully charged battery can provide anywhere from up to 8 hours to up to 20 hours of battery life1, depending on the iPod model and its use2. After about 14 to 28 days of non-use, you will need to charge the battery.
Your iPod displays a battery icon in the upper-right corner of the screen to show approximately how much charge is left. If the iPod is asleep while being charged, a larger version of the same icon appears in the center of the screen. Click here for how to check the charge on an iPod shuffle.
I migrated my user account from my old iMac G4 to my new Intel iMac using the Migration Assistant. I booted up the new machine, but the page loading times in my browser were painfully slow. I tried everything, it seemed, until I checked the Console log and noticed errors with my Safari plug-ins. Then it hit me: maybe those plug-ins were PowerPC only, and were invoking Rosetta repeatedly to run. I removed those plug-ins and voila!, my page loading speed was quicker than ever! -- Mac OS X Hints.
Appleinsider provides confirmation for a rumor that first appeared on Digitimes earlier this month. According to Appleinsider , the newest MacBook Pros will transition away from "cold cathode fluorescent backlights (CCFLs) and towards LED backlights."
The rumor site targets the 15" MacBook Pro as the likely recipient of the LED screen in the "second quarter" of this year, but it is unclear when the 17" Pros and 13" MacBooks will also benefit from the upgrades.
LED-lit displays offer some notable improvements over the traditional CCFLs backlit displays, including:
This week I'm going to show you how you can create an online image gallery in only a few minutes. Aperture makes this so easy that you can probably create a gallery in less time than it takes to upload it to your server. -- O'Reilly Digital Media.
Well, I never thought I'd see this day come. I have officially renounced my Windows ways and joined the dark side. Last night I picked up a 24" Apple iMac. I've spent about 6 hours with it... and I'm in love. I haven't had this much fun with a PC... well, ever, really. -- Isaac.
Although Apple's iPhone and Apple TV unveilings dominated coverage of last week's Macworld Expo, they weren't the only products the Cupertino-based company announced that week. The new-and-improved AirPort Extreme Base Station didn't rate so much as a mention during Steve Jobs' two-hour keynote. Macworld's Dan Frakes has a first look at long overdue refresh of Apple's wireless hardware and Glenn Fleishman goes inside 802.11n.
Ry Cooder is most likely the first well-known musician to master his album using iTunes, but other producers have also noticed its effect. -- New York Times.
It's been really interesting to watch all the discussion around the iPhone in both of the topic areas I cover for O'Reilly (Emerging Telephony and Mac Development). There was a very pronounced dip in enthusiasm among the blogs I read in both of these spaces, that started just about 24 hours after the announcement, when you could almost tangibly feel the glow starting to fade. I was at the Macworld keynote where Steve Jobs announced the iPhone, and there is certainly no disputing that he is one heck of a charismatic speaker and can do a great demo, but I don't think we should discount that fact that a big part of the "wow" factor that spread so fast across the Internet was in large part due to the advances it looks like Apple has achieved with this product. And I'm mostly talking about interface advances. -- O'Reilly MacDevCenter.
Each year Adam Goldstein likes to search out the cool new products at Macworld. This year Adam takes a look at the powerful Indigo home automation system. -- O'Reilly MacDevCenter.
Polymeric nanocomposites, synthetic substances that are both strong and stretchy, like organic spider silk, have baffled scientists looking to replicate their unique properties. On Friday, a team from MIT's Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies (ISN) announced they had devised a new way to create such Lycra-like materials in a lab. -- ExtremeTech.
It's amusing how Steve Jobs' remarks disparaging the idea of Java on the iPhone have ignited controversy. His point was, obviously, that the iPhone's browser won't support Java applets; which is a no-brainer because applets were killed dead-dead-dead by Flash and Ajax. But this seems to have riled up everyone who still cares about non-server-based Java, leading to the weird situation of seeing "Java" and "Mac" in the same sentence again*. Apparently some people still cling to the glorious dream of writing cross-platform GUI applications, waving tattered "Write Once Run Anywhere!" banners and clutching 'Little' Red Books with Duke's picture on the front. -- Thought Palace.
As I am finishing up my other article I thought id take on a challenge and do what nobody has done yet in doing an in depth analysis of the iPhone software and what it'd take to develop for it should Apple ever allow it. Hey I am up for a good challenge. -- Cocoa Samurai.
A Texas company says it can make a new ultracapacitor power system to replace the electrochemical batteries in everything from cars to laptops.
A secretive Texas startup developing what some are calling a "game changing" energy-storage technology broke its silence this week. It announced that it has reached two production milestones and is on track to ship systems this year for use in electric vehicles. -- MIT Technology Review.
Apple beat The Street's expectations with its quarterly earnings reported Wednesday. What's driving Apple's growth and what does the future hold? -- Ars Technica.
Apple has always been known for its high profit margins, but can the company really sell a phone in such a competitive mobile market in the same way it sells computers and iPods? -- Ars Technica.
Users of some laptops will have to pay $2 to activate onboard 802.11n chips; Apple says accounting rules require it to charge for upgrade -- c|net.
Apple did something unprecedented at Macworld. They made the announcement of a major new product six months before it could ship. A detailed demonstration that lasted 80 minutes at the Macworld keynote revealed most of the operational details. -- Computerworld.
Amit Singh posted an entry on his blog that mentioned the MacFUSE project -- the implementation of FUSE for Mac OS X. Using the references that he mentions, one can have one's SSH account appear as a directory -- making it easy to handle and manage. Here's how... -- Mac OS X Hints.
Chicago Times columnist Andy Ihnatko reports on his 45 minutes of hands on time with the Apple iPhone following its announcement at Macworld. He offers some interesting observations based on his experience with the iPhone.
As I exited the keynote address at last week's Macworld Expo, images of the iPhone were dancing in my head. If Apple had set up a booth just outside the hall for selling the device, I would have signed on the dotted line without a moment's hesitation. Fully aware of Steve Jobs' persuasive powers, my defensive shields had been set to full strength prior to going into the keynote. But the device itself was so amazing, more than living up to its pre-Expo hype, that it shattered my shields with ease. I was not alone. You only have to briefly surf through the cornucopia of articles and blog entries covering the iPhone to see that it is already been anointed as the breakthrough product of the year -- and it's only January.
But now, with the passage of several days, and back in the confines of my office, I have had time to reflect more carefully on exactly what the iPhone does and does not bring to the table -- at least to my table. The result is that, while I am certain to get an iPhone eventually, I am no longer certain I want one when it first arrives in June. -- MacFixIt.
Why students should be using technology in their education can be a complex issue, and there are many small points to be made here about the value of learning, understanding and using technology. It can be compared to science in general. Science is responsible for almost all of our advances around the world. It is difficult to think of any current tools, information and discoveries that are not the direct result of science. From the paint used in any art or commercial product to the increasing understanding of the origins of the cosmos and ourselves; science is at the root of it all. Similarly, technology is becoming the foundation upon which nearly everything is being built. -- Macinstruct.
An Apple patent (number 20070013671) for a touch pad for a handheld device has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. It involves, not surprisingly, the iPod line. According to one aspect of the invention, a touch pad is provided on a media player to facilitate user interaction therewith. -- Macsimum News.
Last week, I asked whether or not the iPhone actually needed all those patents that Steve Jobs bragged about. It kicked off a fun discussion in the comments (and among other bloggers), but Tom Evslin's response over at his own blog is one of the most enlightening in explaining not only why Apple needed those patents, but why Steve Jobs so prominently bragged about it. -- Techdirt.
Chris Adamson and I have written that Java could have been used in interesting ways. Think of iTunes which has pieces that run on servers, pc's, and handheld devices. That could have argued in favor of Java. But Java never made it to the iPod and it doesn't look as if it's headed for the iPhone. So Java didn't make it into OS X. -- O'Reilly ONJava.
Just got back home tonight after my week in San Francisco, and found ANOTHER several dozen questions about the iPhone waiting on this blog's comments area! I promise that this blog isn't going to become "all iPhone, all the time"--but I've read through your comments and compiled this second list of Q's and A's. -- New York Times.
There is an Virex update issued 01/17/07. Remember, you must download and install Virex DAT updates on OS X. Mac OS X Virex eUpdate does not work.
Apple Wednesday announced financial results for its fiscal 2007 first quarter ended December 30, 2006. The Company posted record revenue of $7.1 billion and record net quarterly profit of $1.0 billion, or $1.14 per diluted share. These results compare to revenue of $5.7 billion and net quarterly profit of $565 million, or $.65 per diluted share, in the year-ago quarter. Gross margin was 31.2 percent, up from 27.2 percent in the year-ago quarter. International sales accounted for 42 percent of the quarter's revenue. -- Apple.
Apple on Wednesday released results for its fiscal 2007 first quarter ended December 30, 2006, which included record revenue of $7.1 billion and record net quarterly profit of $1.0 billion, or $1.14 per diluted share. Some notes follow from the conference call with analysts and members of the media. -- AppleInsider.
Following reports of a record $1 billion in profit, the company held its quarterly financial conference call with media and investors. In addition to our reports on Apple retail, Macs, and iTunes/iPod, we have published selective excerpts of the conference that offer insights into a very weak quarter in Japan, the Cisco/iPhone lawsuit, the forthcoming "January refresh" of Apple's iLife suite, continuing Bootcamp downloads, Apple TV, iPhone's network, a growing cash reserve, and a possible stock split. -- MacNN.
Apple's decision to lock down software on its new iPhone will help keep the devices secure, security experts told vunet.
"If the iPhone remains a closed device, with not even Java applications or widgets let alone native code, the risk of infection becomes orders of magnitude lower," Symantec researcher Eric Chien said. He added by limiting development for the iPhone, Apple would limit access to the operating system and give attackers less opportunity to find vulnerabilities or develop exploits.
The researcher warned that closing off the ability to install applications on the iPhone would not solve all security risks, however.
"Will malicious software [for the iPhone] exist? Probably," Chien said. "But the amount of malicious software will definitely not be on the scale it is today with Windows and will not reach the levels of malware for current mobile devices."
The National Television Academy awarded Apple a technical Emmy for its QuickTime streaming technology. Apple shared the Streaming Media Architectures and Components award with Adobe, Microsoft, and RealNetworks. -- Mac|Life.
For the most part, the greatest investment you'll make is in time. Converting VHS tapes to digital isn't rocket science nor does it need to be expensive. You have a few ways to approach this. -- Macworld.
A collective gasp was heard around the world following the January, 2007, MacWorld Conference, when Steve Jobs pulled the wraps off the long-rumored iPhone. He proclaimed it a revolutionary product with a brand-new "multi-touch" interface as breakthrough and breathtaking as the mouse interface of the 1960s. Is iPhone as revolutionary as claimed? Is the multi-touch interface truly breakthrough as claimed? Yes and no. Let's take a look. -- AskTog.
The co-founders of the Internet telephone service Skype unveiled the brand name and details of their latest project Tuesday: a new Internet-based television service called Joost. Joost -- pronounced "juiced" -- may eventually try to move onto television sets, but it will initially focus on making it easier and more fun to watch TV on a computer. -- Yahoo.
Macworld 2007 was busier than I've seen in years, but it didn't feel like a computer show. Indeed, as I squeezed past everything from iPod toilet-paper holders to all manner of cases, bags, and enveloping speakers, I was struck by how many of the products were simply designed to dress up your toy. The ubiquitous music player has become a Barbie doll. -- O'Reilly Digital Media.
Researchers and startups have far bigger plans for multi-touch screens than the novel interface on Apple's iPhone. -- MIT Technology Review.
New rumors say that Apple is getting ready to license its FairPlay DRM to a few other companies... this week. -- Ars Technica.
Computer recycling will be offered by Technology Solutions of Tennessee 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 20, at Harper Plaza, 718 E. Harper Ave, in downtown Maryville at the corner of East Harper and East Street.
Technology Solutions of Tennessee will be collecting computers and their peripherals from consumers and small businesses. But also bring your old TVs, cell phones, iPods, stereos, DVDs, VCRs and cameras.
Southland Books will give donors free coffee.
No lead acid batteries or household wastes will be accepted.
Call 865-386-5865 for more details.
If you've never heard of Able Planet, you're not alone: until encountering the company's booth at last week's Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, I hadn't either. Able Planet specializes in audio products with an emphasis on solutions for hearing loss, but its technology can be enjoyed by "all levels of hearing," as the company puts it. -- iPod Observer.
I use Parallels Desktop mainly to make sure my websites work on IE. As the IP address of the virtual network devices installed by Parallels are assigned by a dedicated DHCP server also installed by Parallels, and the IP address of my laptop changes as I change locations, I use the following setup to be able to access my laptops webserver by name from Windows. -- Mac OS X Hints.
Mail wraps URL's longer than 80 characters, so that they no longer work correctly when a recipient clicks on the link. I know that you can use TinyURL to mail shorter URLs, but there is another way to include long URL's which is easier, especially if you include several links in one email. [Doesn't help Microsoft products.]
Just put the URL between angle brackets, i.e., like this:
<http://www.somesite.com/a/really/long/url>
When formed in this way, the link remains clickable for the recipient of the Mail message.
Use the code below as a Safari bookmark, title it "Mail URL" or something, and place it in the Bookmarks Bar.
javascript:location.href="mailto:?SUBJECT="+document.title+"&BODY="+"<"+escape(location.href)+">"
It will automatically copy the url of the page you are on, put < > around it, open mail and place the bracketed url in it.
Apple posted a beta of their upcoming Dashcode development software for widgets earlier this month. A recent Apple Developer Connection News mailing started publicizing it.
Dashcode is a new application for developing Dashboard widgets coming in Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard). Dashcode is everything you need to create great Dashboard widgets.
An early version of Dashcode was shipped with the MacBook back in May. Meanwhile, Apple's developer pages offer more details on the upcoming application.
The final version will be shipping with Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard) but the currently released beta appears to run fine under Mac OS X 10.4 (Tiger).
If you are experiencing varied issues in multiple Microsoft Office 2004 applications after applying the 11.3.3 update, try these fixes first:
Delete .plist files As is the case with many problematic application updates, deleting pertinent .plist files can resolve issues with Office 2004 11.3.3. Navigate to ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft and look for files ending in the following (there may only be one):
Delete it, the log out and back in and check for persistence of the issue(s).
Failing the above, try deleting the entire Microsoft Office 2004 folder and re-installing from the original CD (this is the only way to revert to an earlier version of Office 2004). You can then try re-applying the 11.3.3 updater.
TechRestore today announced that it has begun offering a data recovery service for Mac & PC laptops, desktops, iPods, Memory Cards and CD/DVD media. The new service, known as DataRestore, offers an "alternative to traditional high priced data recovery services."
DataRestore simplifies the entire data recovery process, by offering door-to-door pickup from any location in the continental U.S., optional overnight analysis and shipping, and a "no recovery, no charge" service guarantee (shipping charges still apply).
"While most data recovery companies love to operate in vague terms, with lots of technical jargon to throw you off the fact that you're going to be hit hard in your pocketbook, DataRestore brings you easy to understand pricing," said Shannon Jean, Founder and President of TechRestore.
Pricing starts at $100 for iPods, $90 for memory cards and DVD media, $200-$300 for standard laptop/desktop drive recovery, and $400-$500 for complex data recovery. The company also offers "clean room" reconstruction of drives for between $800 and $900.
Apple has launched an online forum for the AppleTV, allowing users to discuss the various features and potential shortcomings of its wireless streaming media device.
I must admit that I was initially turned off by Revolution and its prior HyperCard replacements - MetaCard, SuperCard and DreamCard; mostly due to the fact that I had been spoiled. In the HyperCard hay-days, every new Mac arrived with HyperCard pre-loaded and it was free. Revolution is not free. In fact it is expensive, but most good software that doesn't come from Apple for free IS expensive. However, Revolution offers features that will now make it desirable to most HyperCard devotees. It has reached the stage of development with Version 2.7 in which Revolution has been released as Universal Binary capable. We'll eventually get into explaining what that means for you - as soon as I find out. -- Macinstruct.
Several new Apple patents have popped up at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, including ones for a media device, scalable scroll controller, unsupervised data-driven pronunciation modeling, method and apparatus for generating text and a method and apparatus for providing an animated representation of a reorder operation. -- Macsimum News.
Will music from the Beatles soon be available on iTunes? This week's leading rumor relates to The Beatles, with a report claiming the act will release music through iTunes, perhaps as soon as 14 February -- Valentine's Day. -- Macworld UK.
The iPhone isn't just a standalone hardware device. It's an iPod, and like the earlier iPods, its integration with iTunes will provide it with a variety of advantages in the areas of sync, software installation, and simplicity. Competing phones, from the Palm Treo to WinCE / Windows Mobile devices and phones from Nokia, Motorola, and other independent manufacturers all suffer from a variety of consistency problems. -- RoughlyDrafted.
With a good user interface (and interactive design), complex digital technologies can be made useful without excessive training and practice sessions. Without a good interactive design, a new product can face an uphill battle, or even failure, in the marketplace. This Newsweek interview with industrial designer Bill Moggridge, though short, has a few interesting examples and insights into the importance of this topic when it comes to modern technologies maturing into successful consumer products.
Take television maker Runco and its latest set, the XP-65DHD. This 100-person, privately held television and projector company in Union City, Calif., was started by Sam Runco back in the 1970's. Runco makes some of the best consumer-electronics equipment on the planet. Not only is the XP-65DHD no exception, it was the best single product shown at last week's gadget bonanza, the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. -- CNN.
Bodelin Technologies on Tuesday introduced a new peripheral called See Eye 2 Eye, a $99 device that turns your webcam (or iSight-equipped Mac) into a teleprompter. -- Macworld.
Wow. All the negativity. Even our own Jochen isn't impressed. Me? I can't wait for AppleTV. The way I see it, AppleTV is a boatload of hackable fun just waiting to be played with. -- O'Reilly MacDevCenter.
In this podcast we talk to MacDevCenter editors Bruce Stewart and Chris Stone about this year's Macworld Expo keynote by Apple CEO Steve Jobs. -- O'Reilly MacDevCenter.
The next great leap in wireless technology delivers on the three most important elements of networking -- greater performance, more range, and improved reliability. And now Apple is continuing to lead the wireless revolution by implementing this new technology in most of the latest Mac computers, Apple TV, and AirPort Extreme Base Station. -- Apple.
Apple announced its new Airport Extreme Base Station (AEBS) this week with a bit less fanfare than enjoyed by its other two new products. Sure, the new AEBS won't change the world, but it does have one new feature that will bring joy to quite a few households. Apple calls it AirPort Disk, and it provides cheap, Apple-simple network storage to home networks. -- O'Reilly MacDevCenter.
You may have missed it with all the news coming out of last week's Macworld Expo, but Apple, Inc. recently distributed a new pre-released build of Mac OS X 10.4.9 to its developer community. -- AppleInsider.
Pop the lid off an Apple TV, the new wireless streaming media device from Apple, Inc., and you'll find that it's built around an aging Pentium M-based Intel processor and other yesteryear notebook technologies. -- AppleInsider.
A new section in the Apple Science site explores how the visual expression of scientific phenomena advances our understanding of the world around us. The site will be regularly updated with new articles and images, featuring those by Harvard Senior Research Fellow Felice Frankel. -- Apple.
There's a rumor going around that Apple will charge owners of computers with disabled 802.11n networking to enable said hardware. If you just heard the sound of a train wreck in your mind, you wouldn't be too far off. -- Ars Technica.
Some people (myself included) tend to hang onto machines looooooong past their prime, particularly Macs. Some people do it because they're collectors, some people do it because they're just plain cheap (guilty as charged), and some people just do it because they're lazy. Either way, Apple can't continue to support those machines forever, and on March 13 of this year, eight old Mac models will cease to be supported by the company. -- Ars Technica.
It looks like Macwelt has managed to weasel a few more juicy details about the iPhone out of Apple. VoIP, iTS downloads, which plugins are activated in Safari, how the OS is stored, and some more. -- Ars Technica.
Earth seen from 4 billion miles away, photographed by Voyager 1 on June 6, 1990..
There are a couple glaring mysteries surrounding Apple's new iPhone, announced this week at Macworld -- the name and the Internet connection speed. I'll get to Google in a moment, but first I'd like to cover these two points about the iPhone. If you've been in a coma the last several days, you may not have heard about Apple's iPhone, which is a combination mobile phone, iPod, and Internet access device. It isn't in the strictest sense a Personal Digital Assistant or PDA, both because its Internet-orientation and whole Web 2.0-iness makes being a PDA passé, and because John Sculley invented that term. Steve Jobs, since he detests anything related to Sculley, who cast Jobs out of Apple back in 1985, will never make a... -- I, Cringely.
After a little research, I found that any Firewire-equipped Mac can be made into an HD-PVR for unencrypted content at the expense of an appropriate firewire cable. Apple even provides the necessary capture software that you need, provided that you know where to look. -- Motaviated.
Come, feel the hem of my garment, ye lowly. Or at least that's what it felt like at Macworld Expo when I would mention, offhandedly, that I had iFondled an iPhone. As a bona fide member of the print press - representing The Seattle Times at the show - I received an executive briefing, and spent 10 minutes with the iPhone. I joked to Macworld editorial director Jason Snell, who also touched an iPhone, that we could put up a sign that read, "Hear about what it's like to play with an iPhone: 25 cents." -- TidBITS.
Remember the fairy godmother in "Cinderella"? She'd wave her wand and turn some homely and utilitarian object, like a pumpkin or a mouse, into something glamorous and amazing, like a carriage or fully accessorized coachman. Evidently, she lives in some back room at Apple. -- New York Times.
After heading off the top ten myths of the iPhone, Daniel Eran of RoughlyDrafted has written a series of articles looking 'Inside the iPhone,' exploring:
How is it that a Macworld keynote webcast can move a grown man to tears? -- Wired.
The great granddaddy of PDAs is still going strong, but won't the iPhone kill it off for good? Newton fans have kept the platform alive and technologically current (in spite of Steve Jobs) and they're not abandoning it yet. -- Wired.
The sight of a handheld running a Mac desktop is the stuff of heady dreams. Let's get ahead of ourselves. -- Wired.
Axiotron, Inc. together with distribution partner Other World Computing are drawing huge crowds at the Macworld Expo in San Francisco this week, as attendees flock to take Axiotron's new Mac OS X-based "ModBook" tablet computer for a test run. -- AppleInsider.
There are times when technology accidentally takes you into uncharted territory. Using the online service iTunes changed one reporter's thinking about his offline, real-life neighbors. [Or what can happen when you don't protect your network.] -- NPR.
Amit Singh of Mac OS X Internals and current employee of Google, has announced the release of MacFUSE, a package that allows users to write and take advantage of arbitrary file system modules. I'll give you some background information, but rest assured that this is cool stuff. -- Ars Technica.
Ars Technica gets a chance to sit down with Parallels Marketing Manager Ben Rudolph at Macworld to talk about what's to come in the next major beta.
Apple has made a new section on its website, Mac@Work. The areas are Small Business, Science, Creative Pro, Education, Seminars & Training and Trade Shows & Events.
Landon Fuller explains why he is devoting his time to patching flaws found by the Month of Apple Bugs project. -- c|net.
Will Apple release a version of its Safari browser for Windows? The Mozilla Foundation seems to believe such a move is a distinct possibility. The outlook is buried in the wiki information the Mozilla Foundation posted this week about its future plans for Firefox. -- ZDNet.
If you're using iMovie to create screencasts, e.g. for software demos, there are a couple of things to know to get the best quality. -- Mac OS X Hints.
David Pogue has complied a list of frequently asked questions about the Apple iPhone. Pogue had some hands on time with the iPhone earlier this week. -- New York Times.
Will Apple release standalone 802.11n enablers for applicable Core 2 Duo/Xeon based Macs?
Earlier this week, Apple quietly rolled announced a new version of the AirPort Extreme Base station that includes support for the yet-to-be-ratified 802.11n wireless standard, which purports data transfer rates of up to 540 Mbps per second (vs. 54 Mbps for 802.11g).
Alongside the announcement, Apple also indicated that enablers would be made available for Macs with built-in 802.11n-capable chipsets, including:
The question is whether this enabler will be made available as a standalone download or be available exclusively with the second-generation AirPort Extreme Base Station.
MacFixIt has received word from a reliable source that at this point, there are only plans to offer the enabler as bundled with the new Base station. These plans are likely tentative, however.
It also remains to be seen whether or not Apple will include the 802.11n enabler pre-installed on newly shipping Macs.
Earlier this week MacFixIt published a preview of Microsoft Office 2008, the next generation of Office for Mac OS X that will ship in the second half of 2007.
Though the update boasts some impressive new Mac-only functionality, a pleasingly revised interface, and all-important compatibility with Open XML documents (generated by Office 2007 for Windows) Microsoft made no indication during its demonstration that the company has changed its mind about including VisualBasic scripting capabilities in the forthcoming release.
Microsoft Office 2008 will not include Visual Basic capabilities in any form, as currently conceived. There will be no execution of newly or previously compiled macros, and the macros cannot be edited in Office 2008. Company representatives have defended this tack in a series of blog postings.
As poignantly observed by one of our readers, this state of affairs means that Office 2004 with the addition of an official converter for Open XML documents (due in beta form for Mac OS X this Spring) may remain the most cross-platform compatible version of Office in existence. That is, assuming, that macros will survive the translation process offered by the converter. In other words, will users be able to run an Office 2007 for Windows document with Visual Basic macros through the Mac OS X translator and then open the document in Office 2004 for Mac OS X and retain the macros? We're seeking information on this issue from the Microsoft MacBU. -- MacFixIt.
If you are having repeated crashes from Office applications after applying the 11.3.3 updater, you should try re-installing from the original media, then re-update.
Unfortunately, one of the more successful fixes for this issue appears to be the tedious process of re-installing Microsoft Office 2004 from the original CD then re-attempting the 11.3.3. update.
PC Magazine has a brief report from its hands-on session with Apple's iPhone. It looks like the device largely lives up to its monumental introduction, though questions linger regarding the effectiveness of the on-screen keyboard.
MacInTouch's Glimpse at Office 2008 has all the details Henry Norr could unearth about the upcoming version of Microsoft's application suite for the Mac, due in the latter half of this year.
Parallels has released Update Release Candidate (RC) for the Parallels Desktop for Mac, which include better USB 2.0 support, improved drag & drop, dramatically improved Boot Camp support as well as a new "Coherence" view mode for "invisible" execution of Windows applications and better support importing third-party virtual machines.
In the nooks and crannies of the Macworld Conference & Expo each year, there always companies and products that are a little off the beaten path and which have some unusual products. Here are some we found this year. -- Macsimum News.
In conjunction with Macworld Conference & Expo, Macsimum News is awarding the 2007 Macsimum Awards. Ten awards are given to the most interesting, coolest hardware and software products shown at MWSF. Without further ado, here they are...
With its cool lines, luminous screen and sleek silhouette, Apple's new iPhone is already a spectacular hit - and it won't even go on sale for months. But is it really as revolutionary as Steve Jobs would have us believe? Of course not, says David Edgerton, it's just a brilliant reinvention of an old idea. -- The Independent.
The iPhone launch went so well this week that it was easy to lose sight of the fact that Apple and Jobs have a big problem on their hands. Apple's acknowledged past practice of backdating employee stock options and the company's investigation into its own actions leave a lot of serious questions to be answered. -- Boston Globe.
On January 11, the US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple's patent application titled User interface for presenting media information. Apple's patent relates to user interfaces for media information, such as time-based media data representing video and/or audio. In particular, the present invention provides an interactive digital processing system-controlled graphical user interface that provides functionality for play back or other processing of time-based and still media data. -- MacNN.
On January 11, the US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple's patent application titled User interface for dynamically managing presentations. Apple's patent relates to methods, such as user interfaces, for dynamically managing document presentations or other types of presentations and, more particularly, relates to the automatic recording, organization, update and display of presentations based on user access patterns. In affect, Apple is introducing a new smart and dynamic webpage bookmarking methodology even though Apple reiterates that the invention is not limited to web browsers, textual or visual presentations. In fact, Apple states that the methods described in the patent pertain to all manner of presentations, be they visual, audio, or of any other kind interpretable by the senses. -- MacNN.
Steve Jobs in his keynote at Macworld 2007 did not mention:
But he will.
I've spent a lot of time between yesterday and today going through the AppleTV specs, watching videos of the AppleTV and so forth. Here's a basic functionality wrap-up. Feel free to let me know what I've messed up on. Follow the jump for the details. Updated Thursday with more details -- O'Reilly MacDevCenter .
If the iPhone succeeds commercially, it will be proof of Steven P. Jobs's power and influence over the world's consumer marketplace. Indeed, at times he seems to be able to defy gravity. -- New York Times.
There's been a lot of discussion in recent months about the likelihood (or not) of Apple releasing some sort of tablet computer. Some people think Apple should; others are convinced that Apple never will. After Tuesday's keynote, I think we will see a Mac tablet of some sort or another. Let me explain why. -- O'Reilly MacDevCenter.
Cisco has sued Apple over the iPhone name, a day after media reports suggested that Apple was licensing the name from the networking giant. -- Ars Technica.
We take a look into the mysterious future and see iPhone nanos and Shuffles, oh my! Crazy? Crazy like a Steve Jobs. -- Ars Technica.
Who would have thought that two companies would have been fighting so hard to emulate Windows on the Mac? -- Ars Technica.
Apple must have decided that MySpace was a decent marketing platform for inanimate, electronic gadgets ever since it put up MySpace profiles for every one of the new, colored iPod nanos. There is now a new MySpace page up for the Apple iPhone, and it certainly looks like a MySpace page that Apple designed.
From a painful price point to no 3G to ambiguous battery life, will the iPhone problems keep it from achieving its potential? -- Ars Technica.
Snerdware announces an update to Groupcal 3, the popular program that lets you access and manage your Microsoft Exchange calendars from Apple's iCal:
Version 3.76 includes the following:
Groupcal 3 can be downloaded and requires Mac OS X 10.4.x. Groupcal operates in trial mode until licensed - $54.95 USD (volume, institutional and Groupcal 2 upgrade pricing available).
Software maker issues "highly critical" updates for Reader, Acrobat versions to fix flaws that could allow PC hijacks. -- c|net.
This is my twentieth year attending Macworld Expo. To put it another way, I have attended over thirty Macworld keynotes. As I try to place Tuesday's keynote in the context of all the others I have seen, I'd have to say that this one was the... I am not sure the word I want to use here, but I'll go with... weirdest. -- The Mac Observer.
Yesterday witnessed a fairly significant entry into the mobile market, an Apple cellphone. TreoCentral's Michael Ducker covered the event live at Macworld San Francisco, photos and a live-blog of the event are available here, (photoset here.) Today, he and Dieter Bohn share a conversation about where they feel the Treo's strengths and weaknesses are in regards to this giant coming into the market. -- TreoCentral.
There is an Virex update issued 01/10/07. Remember, you must download and install Virex DAT updates on OS X. Mac OS X Virex eUpdate does not work.
If you've ever wondered how it works, this is how it works: I don't call Steve, Steve calls me. Or more accurately, someone in Steve Jobs's office calls someone in my office--someone at a much higher pay grade--to say that he has something cool. I then fly to the metastasized strip mall called Cupertino, Calif., where Apple lives, sign some legal confidentiality stuff and am escorted to a conference room that contains Jobs, some associates, and some lumps concealed under some black towels. I stare at what was under the towels. Everybody else stares at me. -- Time.
While the high initial price of the new iPhone drew attention after it was officially introduced Tuesday, a Cingular executive said today that the purchase price is only the first part of the expense users will face. -- ComputerWorld.
A company called Supacam.com is at the Macworld Conference & Expo this year hawking their Supacam DVX, a multi-function pocket device. It's being sold for US$299 at the show, but the spokesman/salesperson at the booth says it's 800 bucks normally. He also made the interesting statement (and I'd take this with a dozen grains of salt) that Apple is coming out with a device just like the Supacam DVX in June for $1,299. -- Macsimum News.
At the moment, the iPhone is in an advanced prototype stage, which I was allowed to play with for only an hour; the finished product won't be available in the United States until June, or in Europe until the fourth quarter. So this column is a preview, not a review. Already, though, one thing is clear: the name iPhone may be doing Apple a disservice. This machine is so packed with possibilities that the cellphone may actually be the least interesting part. -- New York Times.
Bogus prototypes, bullying the press, stifling pillow talk - all to keep iPhone under wraps. Fortune's Peter Lewis goes inside one of the year's biggest tech launches. -- CNNMoney.
The Macworld 2007 Best of Show list (and YouTube video) is out.
So, by now, many folks have seen the Keynote, but there's an incredible demo that Phil Schiller did with CBS News. This being the early Twenty-first Century, and CBS having a brain slightly less small than the rest of the networks, they put up their demo with Phil on You Tube. -- O'Reilly MacDevCenter.
Are you cavalier when it comes to choosing a password that safeguards your personal security? Don't be. Password guessing has gotten too sophisticated to be complacent. -- Wired.
Office 2004 Update 11.3.3 contains several improvements to enhance security and stability, including fixes for vulnerabilities that an attacker can use to overwrite the contents of your computer's memory with malicious code. In addition, this update includes all of the improvements released in all previous Office 2004 updates.
Applies to: Office 2004 Standard Edition, Office 2004 Student and Teacher Edition, Office 2004 Professional Edition, Microsoft Word 2004 for Mac, Microsoft Excel 2004 for Mac, Microsoft PowerPoint 2004 for Mac, Microsoft Entourage 2004 for Mac.
Apple on Tuesday made a bid to change the world once again with the introduction of iPhone, a revolutionary mobile phone that also combines a widescreen touch-control iPod and breakthrough Internet communications device. -- .
Apple on Tuesday premiered Apple TV -- its official name for iTV -- an easy to use device for the wireless playback of iTunes content on big-screen living room television sets. -- .
During the Macworld Expo on Tuesday, Apple introduced its new AirPort Extreme, a simple and elegant wireless networking solution delivering up to five times the performance and twice the range of the previous AirPort Extreme.
Watch Apple CEO Steve Jobs kick-off Macworld Conference & Expo 2007 with a keynote address from San Francisco's Moscone West. See the video-on-demand (VOD) event right here exclusively in QuickTime and MPEG-4. -- Macworld Conference & Expo 2007 Keynote Address.
In what's potentially the most troubling announcement from the Macworld Expo (the first being Apple's creepy attraction to John Mayer), Macworld.com is quoting Apple CEO Steve Jobs as having stated, "The Mac, iPod, appleTV and iPhone. Only one of those is a computer. So we're changing the name. We're announcing today that we're dropping the 'Computer' from our name, and from this day forward we're going to be known as Apple, Inc." Conspiracy theorists, get busy!
It may be darkest just before dawn in some places of the world, but that's not the case on the streets of San Francisco hours before Macworld. -- c|net.
For fans of Macintosh computers, Tuesday brought a chance to hear some of the inside stories behind the history of the iconic machines. At Macworld here, Andy Hertzfeld, a member of the team that built the original Mac, spoke to a crowd of about 50 people about the early days of the project. -- c|net.
The Adobe Reader 7.0.9 update fixes a number of security vulnerabilities. Adobe recommends that all Adobe Reader 7.0.x users apply this update. -- Adobe.
First, let me say this. The iPhone looks incredible. It's a definite paradigm shift in the world of phones, PDAs, and iPods. I want one, even if I never use the phone portion of the device. Same with Apple TV--I've actually ordered one for our home, as it will meet our needs perfectly. My gut reaction is that Apple has hit a huge home run with the iPhone. Beyond that, though, I was terribly disappointed by this year's keynote. -- Macworld.
Microsoft announced on Tuesday that Office 2008 for the Mac is in development and should be available in the second half of 2007. The new version of the office productivity suite will include Universal Binary versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Entourage - all capable of running natively on Intel and PowerPC-based Macs.
Roz Ho, general manager of the Mac Business Unit at Microsoft commented "Office 2008 is, by far, the most comprehensive, Mac-complementary productivity suite we've developed to date."
The suite shares the same "ribbon" interface found on the new version of Office for Windows, along with several Mac-only features including a Publishing Layout view in Word, Ledgers Sheets in Excel, and a My Day view for reviewing your schedule.
The Mac version of Office will switch to Microsoft's Open XML file formats to ensure cross platform file compatibility.
A major concern for many Mac Office users has been file compatibility with the new version of Office for Windows. The Mac BU plans to address those concerns by releasing a public beta of the file converters for Office 2004 this spring. The file converters will allow Office 2004 users to open and save Open XML-formatted documents.
Pricing and upgrade information is not yet available. -- Microsoft.
The question on the minds of many developers now that this new stripped down version of OS X will be made available is... can I develop applications for it? So far, the answer has been "no comment" from Apple. However, an interesting note is that the iPhone's display is extremely high-resolution (160 ppi). At WWDC 2006, Apple told developers to begin making their applications "resolution independent," a fact that may come to bear should Apple decide to distribute a software development kit.
Yesterday the MacFixIt editors had a chance to speak with a few select members of Microsoft's MacBU development team about the newly announced Office 2008 for Mac OS X, which will be available in mid-to-late 2007.
With the iPhone, Apple TV, and a name change, Jobs & Co. are setting a new course for the outfit once known only for its computers. -- BusinessWeek.
Apple Inc.'s consumer electronics are getting better all the time, but the company is apparently getting little help from its friends in England. Thunderous applause greeted Apple CEO Steve Jobs when he cued up the song "Lovely Rita" from the Beatles' "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" on the company's new iPhone gadget during Tuesday's Macworld Conference & Expo. For weeks, blogs and Web sites had speculated that the Cupertino-based company would be announcing a deal to distribute the Fab Four's music on its iTunes digital music store. -- Boston Herald.
Last year iProng brought you the most thorough coverage of iPod-related products and events of any publication at Macworld Expo, and our coverage of this year's Expo will be even more expansive. iProng has spent the past month working the seventy-two companies expected to exhibit iPod-related products at the Expo in order to make sure our coverage is as timely and thorough as possible. In order to make it easier for you, the reader, to keep up with the dozens of new products that will be announced in just a four day span, we're condensing this year's Expo product coverage into four static pages: companies beginning with the letters A-H, I-X, X-Z, and a fourth page devoted solely to Apple's iPod-related announcements from the Steve Jobs Keynote. -- iProng.
What does the rest of the world think about Apple's announcements yesterday? Let's see now... -- O'Reilly MacDevCenter.
Done in a "Transportation Security Administration" motif, the entrance to the North Hall is brought to you by the letter M. However, the real Macworld is down the rabbit hole, where only San Franciscans would think it good idea to build a convention center underground in an earthquake zone. If the Big One hits on Tuesday, tens of thousands of Mac users will be entombed with their objects of desire, and what better way to go than that? -- Ars Technica.
Just south of Market Street in San Francisco is Apple Computer's home away from Cupertino. Special events, WWDC, and Macworld all take place in or around the three buildings that make up Moscone Center. The exhibit halls are located beneath the North and South Hall (shown above), and combined they boast more than 500,000 square feet of exhibition space, or approximately 10 times more than needed for Macworld until the iPod came along. -- Ars Technica.
Tuesday, January 9th at 9am PST/12pm EST.
Download Squad's quick and easy tutorial on using Apple's new tools to whip up a custom RSS feed widget for your Dashboard.
Black MacBook is a large resource site for Black MacBook owners and those interested in getting a Black MacBook.
This is my 2007 predictions column, where I first examine my predictions from 2006 to see how well or poorly I did (my multiyear average is around 75 percent) then provide a list of predictions for the current year that are sufficiently vague that I may be able to squint and claim that they were correct, too, a year from now. I have to admit up front that it doesn't look good. I still think I am on track, but many things are taking longer to happen than I expected, especially from Apple. 1) I predicted that Apple would announce iPhone and iTV products as well as content deals. The content deals happened and some of the iTV technology was demonstrated, but I think we'll... -- I, Cringely.
The JBoss Management Console may not work in Safari with Mac OS X 10.4.5 or later and Java 1.5. This article explains how to revert to version 1.4.2 of the Java plug-in to resolve the issue. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
iPod + iTunes
Mac
Mac OS + Software
Was it worth missing Tuesday's Steve Jobs keynote to see Bill Gates' keynote at CES? I have to admit I feel better for having seen Mr. Gates' keynote, if only in the way that taking the time to explore a third-world country will enrich your perspective of the world. -- The Mac Observer.
I wrote an AppleScript that monitors the RAM usage of Safari (or other apps) and displays it (in megabytes) in the title of the front most window. The AppleScript pops up an alert dialog if the Safari memory usage exceeds a specified amount (currently 100MB). There is also an option to use Growl for these warnings. If Safari's CPU usage exceeds 10%, the CPU usage is also shown in the title bar. -- Mac OS X Hints.
Forbes has a very brief piece that sums up the major obstacles and prospects for Steve Jobs and Apple in this spectacular week. "One, will Jobs finally announce Apple Computer's iPhone? Will it be a game changer? Cellphones are a tough business. Last week, Motorola's stock dived after the company announced poor fourth-quarter results. Reason: Too aggressive pricing for its Razr phones. Which caused declining margins and sinking profitability. Question for Apple: Can it design a phone so cool it will transcend the industry's brutal price pressures? Two, the options backdating scandal. The stink won't go away. On the other hand, Steve Jobs is such an American hero--he is our age's Walt Disney--that he might get away with it. Ben Stein finds that prospect appalling. Do you?"
Apple Computer Chief Executive Steve Jobs is expected Tuesday to unveil an Apple phone representing his company's new mobile communications strategy -- highlighted by a device that may include Jobsian refinements such as a sleek ceramic case and a transparent touch screen. -- New York Times.
Seeking to build on its lead over rival Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) in the race to sell quad-core processors, Intel launched three quad-core processors on Monday. -- Macworld.
LucasFilm licensee Nikko Home Electronics is showing an R2-D2 DVD Projector, a multi-functional DVD player, iPod dock and home theater projector. -- New York Times.
My job has been heavily user interface design-tastic these days, and I'm also personally (and perhaps unhealthily) obsessed with the concept of resolution independence. So when Macsimum News posts a story about a Apple patent regarding a resolution independent user interface, my nerd-senses start tingling faster than an morning shower with Dr. Bronners. -- Cabel's Blog LOL.
Everyone knows Steve Jobs is an art lover, but wrapping the entire Apple booth in black fabric is taking the Christo homage a bit too far. -- Wired.
Hell hath no fury like a security researcher scorned, and other lessons from the Month of Apple Bugs. -- Wired.
Apple's premier showcase for new gear may skip any new Macs--the run-up's been all about phones, iPods and the like. -- c|net.
Microsoft has worked out a deal to let the system play songs encoded in Apple's FairPlay AAC format. Previous versions of the Microsoft Auto system played songs from iPods in unprotected formats, but not those encoded in that way. Songs played through the car audio system will still reside on the iPod. -- Seattle Post-Intelligencer.
Chris Forsythe, who you may recognize from Adium, Growl, Perian or Family, has posted a new resource to help aspiring cocoa developers. Every week or so, he'll upload a new mini-application, which may or may not be accompanied by some direction as to which APIs to use. Novice developers, or even seasoned developers who just want practice with a new or unfamiliar API, are encouraged to download the application and reimplement it. At the end of the challenge, he'll post his source code so you can check your work. Try it out, and if you feel motivated, feel free to post questions or a link to your work here. These challenges should be small enough for even the newest developers to manage and just useful enough to be more interesting to work on than many of the examples you'll see in books.
Amid the hype surrounding the release of Windows Vista, Mac users are taking solace from the fact that OS X is still a champ on many fronts. Here are some reasons our reviewer John C. Welch opts for Apple. -- InformationWeek.
The best companies making the best products still want to mimic the iPod, and they're learning that it's more about substance than style. -- BusinessWeek.
What follows is a listing of wireless router manufacturers/models with which our readers have found poor, fair or good with regard to ease-of-configuration and performance when used with Macs. Of course, this list excludes Apple's own generally well-functioning and extremely easy-to-configure AirPort line of wireless routers (AirPort Extreme, Express). -- MacFixIt.
There's a somewhat-hidden feature in Mac OS X 10.4 that allows you to rotate any monitor in increments of 90 degrees. If you press the option key while opening System Preferences, and continue to press the option key while selecting the Displays preference panel, you may see an option for "Rotate" on each screen's panel. (I say "may see" because when I tried this on my 800MHz PowerBook G4 it appeared, but when I tried it on my much older 667MHz PowerBook G4 and 500MHz Power Mac G4 it did not. I suspect this is a Quartz Extreme feature, because the Safari RSS screen saver is similarly available only on the newer machine, and I know that's a Quartz Extreme-only screen feature.) [It's on my "Display System Prefs" without having to invoke the option key.] -- Bombay Digital.
I'm revved with anticipation about MacWorld. But it's not for the same reason that most of you might be. What's really fueling my excitement is that I've got an awesome photo gig lined up to shoot some material for a client at MacWorld. I simply can't wait to get on with it. For this shoot, I'll be using Aperture as an essential part of my workflow. And, I've decided to take you behind the scenes as I work this gig and provide day-by-day postings throughout MacWorld. -- O'Reilly Digital Media.
In this second part of Matthew Russell's series on building a game engine with Cocoa, we learn how to program the logic for generating valid moves and improve the overall usability of our board game by highlighting squares on the board that correspond to valid move locations. -- O'Reilly MacDevCenter.
Botnet programs and other malicious software largely take aim at PCs running the Microsoft Windows operating system, because Windows' ubiquity makes it fertile ground for network-based attacks. Using a non-Windows-based PC may be one defense against these programs. [Can you say Macintosh boys and girls? I knew you could.] -- New York Times.
Fanatics can now move recorded TV shows to their Mac or iPod. Finally graduating from the Vaporware hall of fame, TiVoToGo becomes a bonafide bit of software. -- Wired.
This update renews the .Mac certificate required by iChat for encrypting text, audio and video conferences.
A Christmas Eve blog by "rekle" on ekle.us hit a harmoniously resonant chord with me. Entitled "The Apple 'Curse'," the commentary related how purchasing an iPod two years ago set in motion a dynamic whereby the author has now become an evangelistically enthusiastic Apple products fan.
If you were hoping that Steve Jobs' Macworld Keynote would be broadcast next Tuesday you are going to be disappointed. If you want to "see" it you will have to wait until at lest Wednesday or whenever Apple posts it to their site. But it will not be broadcast live.
The best place to keep up if you can't be in the hall may be Mac Rumors. They do a good job of blogging the keynotes as they are happening.
If your MacBook shuts down randomly during use, a downloadable firmware update is now available that resolves this issue. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
Mac users love to gloat about their bug-free machines. So does Apple, which likes to portray its computers as paragons of cyberhealth. Now, some hackers want to take them down a notch.
Make that 31 notches: A Month of Apple Bugs, a new project organized by two security researchers, plans to expose one flaw in the Mac operating system or Apple software each day in January. So far, the two have published a successful exploit of Apple's QuickTime Version 7.1.3 and in a Mac version of the free video software made by VideoLAN. (When this article went to press Wednesday afternoon, the duo had yet to release a third flaw.) -- Forbes.
SanDisk on Thursday said that its new solid state drive, the SanDisk SSD, is the first flash storage device to bridge the gap between capacious hard disks and fast but typically expensive flash memory. Holding 32GB of data, the 1.8-inch wide SSD is a drop-in replacement for the hard drive of most any notebook. In current form, the drive connects to any standard Ultra ATA port, a rarity for the often proprietary nature of solid state disks. The use of flash brings with it more than just an absence of failure-prone moving parts, SanDisk says: the lack of spool-up time allows the SSD to operate much more quickly than a hard drive, reading data as quickly as 62MB/sec. This is nearly 100 times faster than the hard drives typically found in notebooks, the company boasts.
Scheduled to debut at CES next week, SanDisk's flash storage will be ready immediately for larger system builders and should add $600 to the cost of a given system. While expensive compared to hard disks, the price is said to compare very favorably to earlier attempts at using solid state disks in mainstream notebooks by Fujitsu and Samsung, whose prices soared by as much as $1,400 compared to conventional models.
From DigiTimes yesterday comes the news that Apple and HP will release laptops in Q2 that will feature new LCD screen technology. Instead of the regular fluorescent lamps that serve as backlights for your typical LCD screen, the new displays will use LEDs. The Tech Report's story mentions that the effect will be a brighter image with better contrast. What it doesn't mention is that LED-backlit displays will allow for thinner laptop designs and longer battery life.
A company known as BrightSide already uses LED backlights in so-called high dynamic range displays, which can modulate the brightness of individual LEDs behind the LCD panel to achieve contrast ratio ratings of 200,000:1 and brightness ratings of 3,000cd/m².
According to DigiTimes, notebook manufacturers will require brightness ratings of over 1,680cd/m² for their upcoming notebooks--lower than the BrightSide displays' but still several times that of standard LCD monitors, which are often rated for 200-400cd/m².
Software that sniffs the airwaves and displays whatever data it finds being transmitted in a public hot spot is free and widely available. -- New York Times.
Here's a summary of last week's Mac Freeware & Free & Open Source Software (F/FOSS) discussed in Todd Ogasawara's personal blog. If you have freeware or Open Source software to recommend for Mac users, please post it in a response here (or email the information to me if you prefer to remain anonymous). -- O'Reilly MacDevCenter.
Today is one of the best and worst days of my shareware experience.
I released WriteRoom 2.0 yesterday morning, sales have been wonderful. I think the best ever for me in a 24 hour period in over 5+ years of Mac shareware development. Thanks to everyone who's bought a copy and helped shape WriteRoom's development. And also to everyone who's written in saying how much they like the program. It all helps my fragile programmer's ego! :)
But then I started reading comments on some popular download sites... ouch. The basic thesis is that WriteRoom is a great program, but I'm an evil person for charging $25 dollars for it. And once I'm evil a few other comments concerning Mori and Hog Bay Software in general are thrown in.
I'm not sure that I can make those people happy, but here I'll at least try to explain myself and the pricing of WriteRoom. -- Hog Bay Software.
Microsoft's Office 2007 has won some positive reviews. But the update will debut with a new open source file format, Office Open XML, or OOXML, a move that OpenDocument supporters say will create a new and unnecessary format war -- all to support Microsoft's business plans. Significantly, OOXML will not work with older versions of MS Office, which alone could motivate some to upgrade. -- Wired.
The Tennessee Traffic Cameras widget provides a simple and easy way to view traffic cameras from across the state of Tennessee, all in one place. The traffic widget ties into the TDOT Smartway Information System, the city of Brentwood and the city of Murfreesboro.
Currently the widget provides views of traffic cameras for the cities of Brentwood, Knoxville, Memphis, Murfreesboro, and Nashville. As other cities come online, they will be added to the widget as well.
Traffic images update every time you access your Dashboard. (Some cameras only update every few minutes.)
After going Windows-only, Adobe brings the Production Studio suite of applications to both Windows and Mac. Adobe Systems said that it will release its Premiere Pro video editing software on Intel-based Macs by the middle of this year. -- c|net.
As regular readers know I have an HP Scanjet 8250 which has preformed very well and I have recommend it.
However every once-in-a-while I can not find it or it will not respond. The fix has always been to reinstall the software. I even go to the HP site to get the latest stuff.
Well today that did not work. The only excuse I can offer is that I am running OS X 10.4.9.
After much digging on HP's troubleshooting site it said to:
That worked and I have may scanner again but HP continues to change the scanner interface and not for the better.
And its new HP Device Manager did not quit and was taking up 79% of my CPUs. I ran Activity Monitor and had it quit the process which gave me my CPUs back.
I set up a shared folder in Parallels (use Edit mode on the virtual machine), and pointed it to /Volumes. Now all mounted devices are available in Windows via the Parallels Shared Folders shortcut.
This is a good alternative to creating shares for specific folders, as it gives you access to everything. -- Mac OS X Hints.
There is an Virex update issued 01/03/07. Remember, you must download and install Virex DAT updates on OS X. Mac OS X Virex eUpdate does not work.
An Apple patent (number 2007005674) for a "single-channel convolution in a vector processing computer system" has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. It relates generally to signal processing within a computer processor. More particularly, the present invention relates to convolution operations in a vector processing computer system. -- Macsimum News.
On Saturday, January 13th, from 9 a.m. - 3 p.m., area residents can participate in the Plug Into Your Community event by dropping off old computers, scanners, laptops, printers, calculators, cell phones and other items at one convenient location. Many electronic items contain harmful materials and should not be disposed of with regular garbage.
Acceptable items that may be dropped off at this event are: computer equipment such as PC systems, CPUs, monitors, mice, keyboards, printers, scanners, laptops, modems, hard drives, speakers, power cords, cables, phones, powers strips, desktop copiers, fax machines, small TVs (no consoles) and cell phones. -- Knoxville.
On January 4, the US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple's patent application titled Method and apparatus for increasing data transfer rates through a communication channel. Apple's patent generally relates to techniques for communicating data through a communication channel. More specifically, the patent relates to a method and an apparatus for increasing a data transfer rate through a communication channel. -- MacNN.
On January 4, the US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple's patent application titled Run-time code injection to perform checks. Apple's patent generally relates to digital rights management (DRM) and more particularly, by way of example, to performing a check at run-time to determine if a software application is authorized to execute on a specific hardware platform. Apple states that their DRM will apply to personal computers, servers, PDAs and cell phones. It is further noted that Apple's Trusted Platform Modules (TPM) operations may conform to Trusted Computing Platform Alliance specifications as published by the Trusted Computing Group, including the support of industry-standard cryptographic Application Programming Interfaces. -- MacNN.
On January 4, the US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple's patent application titled Methods and systems for managing data. Apple's patent generally relates to methods and systems for processing data, including metadata and an index database. -- MacNN.
On January 4th, the US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple's patent application titled Single-channel convolution in a vector processing computer system. Apple's patent relates generally to signal processing within a computer processor. More particularly, the present invention relates to convolution operations in a vector processing computer system. -- MacNN.
On January 4, the US Patent & Trademark Office published Apple's patent application titled Hybrid voltage/current-mode transmission line driver. Apple's patent relates to techniques for communicating data through a communication channel. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for compensating for frequency dependent losses when transmitting signals through a lousy communication channel. -- MacNN.
iPhoto 6 has more slide-show horsepower than you probably realize. However, some of iPhoto's most interesting slide-show talents are cleverly disguised as other features. The latest edition of Digital Photo shows you how to master a few of these hidden powers and turn your favorite photos into an entertaining short movie. -- Macworld.
TUAW talks about the growing swell of upcoming apps which will use Leopard APIs, and therefore, will require Leopard to run. I'm sure some users are wondering why developers are doing this, and some developers are wondering if they should do the same. -- Theocacao.
Apple computer is facing a new lawsuit in the U.S. which claims that tying the iTunes Store to the iPod violates anti-trust laws. The suit was filed by a user, Melanie Tucker, but will probably get class action status.
What I'd like to know is how much of this alleged monopoly is a result of Apple's decisions and how much of it comes from restrictions and DRM requirements that the recording industry wanted in place? -- Wired.
Since its founding in the 1860s, the University of California, Berkeley, has established a renowned tradition of openness, encouraging innovation and exploration. Now, Berkeley extends that openness further by making educational audio and video content available to students and the public via UC Berkeley on iTunes U. -- Apple.
Tuesday, REAL Software posted its first major release for 2007 of REALbasic 2007. The software is available for Mac OS X, and developers can use it to create software for the Mac, Linux, and all varieties of Windows. Of course, it's available in Universal Binary as well, which means that it'll be able to run natively on all Intel Macs.
If your computer won't start up normally, you may need to use a disk repair utility to fix the issue. Mac OS X includes two utilities for this--Disk Utility and fsck. You can also use these even when your computer starts just fine but you want to check the disk for possible file system issues. For Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later, check out "About live verification in Mac OS X 10.4.3 or later," below. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
If you need to get a packet trace and you don't already have a favorite utility for doing so, you can use the tcpdump command line tool. All versions of Mac OS X include this tool, as do many other Unix-style platforms. Note: The BSD subsystem must be installed in order to use tcpdump. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
Many Apple customers who bought 15-inch Aluminum PowerBooks found a problem with their lower memory slot. Apple has addressed the issue in an Repair Extension Program notice, but has restricted the program to those PowerBooks manufactured only between January and April 2005. In a story published at Low End Mac Tuesday, Charles Moore summarized the issues.
The article pointed to an on-line petition where customers who've experienced the problem, but are not included in the Repair Extension Program, have asked Apple to be included.
Customers have experienced the problem in these PowerBook models, purchased outside the Apple specified time frame, according to the article.
IT Business Edge reports on the current goings-on and speculation regarding Apple's place in the Enterprise. "IBM, for one, thinks highly enough of Apple to release a Mac version of Lotus Notes. It comes chock full of Web 2.0 features, such as embedded collaboration tools, RSS functions and personalized blog templates. Meanwhile, Apple itself is looking to patent a new GUI aimed at tying Web-based objects more closely to back-end productivity systems."
Marc Liyanage released LogitechLCDTool 0.6b, an application that provides support for features of the Logitech Z-10 USB speaker system that are otherwise supported only in Windows, including iTunes status display and iTunes track control for the LCD display and touch buttons. For the adventurous, however, the software provides much more.
If Amazon's hot holiday seller list is any indication, a lot of you got new Macs this holiday season. If you switched to a Mac from a PC, you've probably noticed that there are a lot of differences between the two.
When I bought my first Mac a few short months ago, it took a while to figure out how to do all the stuff I already knew how to do on my PC. While it's my job to spend time figuring that sort of thing out, there's no need for you to waste your precious time figuring out the minutia of a new operating system. To ease this transition for all of the new Mac owners out there, I've put together a quick guide for Mac newbies making the big switch. -- Lifehacker.
I think Windows should be avoided whenever possible. But sometimes it can't be. Now we--Mac users, and PC users who couldn't switch because of that one last program holding them back--are all free to run Windows programs without having to live in Windows. -- Macworld.
We asked Macworld's editors, contributors, and readers to consider the technologies, products, and services that are going to have the biggest real-world impact on Mac buyers in 2007. They came up with the following list of ten trends. Your life may not be changed by all of them. But chances are that at least a couple will change the way you use and buy Mac products in the next 12 months.
As Apple continues to proliferate in the computer market, the amount of top-notch products and software for Mac users is ever increasing. The following list is a compilation of what we at Macworld and Playlist consider to be 2006's best of the best--products and software that we deemed worthy of a rare five-out-of-five rating.
A while ago, I wrote about synchronizing iTunes libraries between a couple of machines using rsync while allowing for multiple locations. I continue to use that system and it works great. Since I wrote that, iTunes has added significantly improved cover art handling. In fact, the whole cover flow thing has totally changed the way I interact with my library. -- bbum's weblog-o-mat.
Wondering what to do with your old electronics this New Year? Online guides tell consumers how to avoid sending their computers to toxic chop shops. -- MIT Technology Review.
Virtualization is the new big thing, if 'new' can include something over four decades old. It has been used historically in a number of contexts, but a primary focus now is in the virtualization of servers and operating systems. Much like Linux, virtualization provides many options for performance, portability, and flexibility. Here are two discussions of this topic. One by IBM and the other by Amit Singh.
There is an Virex update issued 12/27/06. Remember, you must download and install Virex DAT updates on OS X. Mac OS X Virex eUpdate does not work.
In Vista, on the other hand, Microsoft did not select unrecognized features, did not have any particular vision in knowing what would work and what wouldn't, did not put its own stamp on anything. It simply waited for Apple to recognize and perfect good technologies, then duplicated them bit for bit. Oh, and then claim to be a leader in innovation. That's quite a difference! -- The Microsoft Way.
Security Update 2006-008 improves the security of Quartz Composer and QuickTime for Java.
Just a reminder that starting Wednesday, 1/3/2007, many non-SSL access methods to the public unix servers (larry, moe, jeni, murphy) will be disabled. This includes at least the following services:
You must start using ssh, sftp, scp and imaps from now on for connecting to these servers. For some assistance, see the FAQ "Connecting via Secure Protocols to Unix" on the OIT Helpdesk FAQ web site or contact the HelpDesk, 865-974-9900.
This is a description of how to set up a secure tunnel between your MySQL Server and a locally running MySQL Administrator using PuTTY. By creating a secure tunnel to your MySQL server using PuTTY, you can grant localhost access to powerful applications like MySQL Administrator while making your server appear as if it isn't even there. -- HowToForge.
Several readers asked me to comment this week on a very entertaining blog post from New Zealand: A Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection, by Peter Gutmann (it is in this week's links). The essay characterizes the Digital Rights Management in Windows Vista as a suicide note from Microsoft because Vista's DRM is so draconian and is built into the hardware on such a low level that it is going to piss off the market and ultimately hurt (possibly even destroy) Microsoft, itself. Except it won't. This is Microsoft attempting to lead a revolution by running from behind. -- I, Cringely.
Apple Computer's Web site is sporting an intriguing image and a hint that big things are in store. The site greets you with "The first 30 years were just the beginning. Welcome to 2007." Maybe just a friendly greeting, or possibly a tease about the company's plans - and new product announcements at Macworld Expo 2007 next week.
The last time Apple posted pre-Macworld teasers was in 2002. The 2002 lead up brought the flat panel iMac, iPhoto, Mac OS X as standard boot and 14" iBook.
It seems to me, never has there been more of a gulf between the public perception of Apple and the core competency of Apple. What started me thinking about all this was the combination of two stories here at TMO on Wednesday. The combination of the two stories reminded me of the stark difference between the technology of a UNIX operating system, the public perception of Apple, and how Apple manages its image. -- The Mac Observer.
Parallels Desktop for Mac Update Beta3 (Build 3106) brings another round of improvements to the Mac virtualization software. This beta does not introduce any new functionality, but provides several very important fixes to the problems found in previous Betas.
Micromat today announced the upcoming release of it latest product, TechTool Protogo.
TechTool Protogo is a Mac OS X application that lets Mac users easily turn an old iPod, a flash drive or other similar device into a bootable diagnostic tool that contains several of Micromat's utilities (as well other third-party utilities). The device can then be used to boot, check, maintain and repair Macs, allowing a customer to create a tool similar to Micromat's TechTool Protege on a device they already own.
TechTool Protogo ships on a DVD that includes the Protogo configuration application, as well as Micromat's TechTool Pro Classic (for Mac OS 9 systems and below), TechTool Pro 4 (for Mac OS X), and DiskStudio. Protogo includes several profiles for standard system/utility configurations, making it easy to set up a device for specific needs. TechTool Protogo will begin shipping at Macworld Expo on January 9th, 2007 for $200 ($135 street price).
IBM has released Lotus Notes 7.0.2 for Mac OS X, offering enterprise Mac users instant messaging, presence awareness, and Web 2.0 tools such as RSS technology and a blogging template.
An enhanced user interface and email productivity features enable Mac users to group emails through a conversation thread, view emails at-a-glance, and save work in progress without the need to manually activate the save function.
The software enhances collaboration through integrated instant messaging and presence awareness, according to IBM, by allowing users to communicate in real time across an enterprise from within Notes email, calendar, and contacts. Full calendaring features include group scheduling as well as meeting delegation, and embedded RSS technology allows users to publish data from any Lotus Notes application.
Lotus Notes 7.0.2 for the Mac is available for $101 per seat (specific system requirements were unavailable).
It was an iTunes or Apple Gift Card. Hitwise, an online competitive intelligence service, says the market share of visits to the iTunes web site was up 413 percent on Christmas Day 2006 versus Christmas Day 2005 as new iPod owners flocked to the web to download iTunes. In addition, the market share of visits to the Apple Store showed an increase of 110 percent when comparing Christmas Day 2006 to 2005. -- Macsimum News.
In our first patent report of a new year, we're noting an Apple patent (number 7,158,158) for a "method and apparatus for nonlinear anamorphic scaling of video images." The patent was filed in 2003, so regards existing technology. -- Macsimum News.
Several Apple patents have popped up at the European Patent Office. Some of 'em are pretty technical, but are presented for your consideration. Patent number EP1735754 is for animation of an object using behaviors. -- Macsimum News.
An Apple patent (number 20060294470) for a "method and apparatus for binding user interface objects to application objects" has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. It involves how Mac software interacts with web page elements. -- Macsimum News.
An Apple patent (publication number 20060291154) for a guard system for a portable computer disk drive slot has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, and obviously regards Apple's laptop computers. A guard is positioned substantially adjacent the computer disk drive slot for movement between an open position and a closed position. -- Macsimum News.
Apple has been granted a patent (publication number D534,065) for an ornamental design for a clasp. It looks as if it could be for the second generation iPod shuffle. It was filed in conjunction with other patents for a lanyard and an electronic device holder. -- Macsimum News.
Apple has been granted a patent (publication number 7,155,682) for a method and system for automatically resizing and repositioning windows in response to changes in display. It's generally directed to graphical user interfaces for computers, and more particularly to the automatic repositioning and/or resizing of utility windows in response to actions that may affect the view or content of such windows on a display. -- Macsimum News.
Apple has been granted a patent (publication number 7,154,477) for a hybrid low power computer mouse by the US Patent & Trademark Office. This invention relates generally to low power user input devices. More specifically, the invention describes an ultra low power computer mouse having an optical tracking engine and inertial tracking engine that cooperate to provide velocity data to a computing device. -- Macsimum News.
In what appears to offer some insight into a feature of the upcoming Mac OS X 10.5 ("Leopard"), an Apple patent (20060284878) for a "resolution independent user interface design" has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. It relates to graphical user interface material map objects that are specified by a collection of attribute-value pairs, the collection of which comprises a complete description of the material map and may be used by a rendering engine to create a visual representation of the material map at any resolution. -- Macsimum News.
An Apple patent (number 20060288053) for an "apparatus and method for peer-to-peer N-way synchronization in a decentralized environment" has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. it This involves PIM data and the synchronization of it and not data/info management at Apple stores, as I reported earlier. -- Macsimum News.
Keith has often taken a series of photographs to cover a panoramic view. Stitching them together (well) is a lot of trouble, or if you try and do it in Photoshop, limited to 8 bit images.
Keith has recently been looking at a specialist program called Stitcher, from Realviz. Although it offers a great deal in creating VR movies and a host of other smart functions, this article covers one specific area - producing very high quality, high resolution images for panoramic prints. -- Northlight Images.
What do you do when photos from Thanksgiving, Birthdays, and Christmas magically disappear from your digital camera? Let your Mac rescue lost digital photos using CardRaider. -- Mac360.
Best company: Apple Computer Inc. Yes, it did it again, but this time with astonishing grace. Switching an entire product line from the Motorola/IBM-made PowerPC chip to Intel Corp.'s processors is one of the most daring, and potentially daunting, moves in a long time. The Cupertino, Calif.-based company did it with tremendous speed and performance gains. -- Washington Times.
InfoWorld posted its 2007 Technology of the Year Awards. Apple did rather well with a nod to Apple's migration to Intel processors and two top hardware awards.
The Mac Pro won the Best Desktop/Workstation Award.
"Apple's 64-bit Mac Pro workstation leverages Apple's in-house hardware and software engineering to create a system that stands well apart from the crowded Woodcrest field. Mac Pro is designed for expandability, long life, and quiet operation, and it's completely compatible with Apple's system management software."
The MacBook Pro won the Best Notebook Award.
[Apple's] MacBook Pro is both elegant and powerful, thanks to a 2.66GHz 64-bit Intel Core 2 Duo CPU, 3GB of RAM, an AMD/ATI X1600 GPU, dual-layer DVD burner, long-life battery, and plethora of ports. And with OS X Tiger, every iota of that power is focused on your work."
Footage of an iPod vending machine selling Apple's venerable MP3 player and accessories - recently seen in Asian markets with this being one of the first sightings on American soil - in action over at a Macy's department store. The vending machines feature a touch screen and also accept credit cards to finance these purchases, which can run into the hundreds of dollars.
Some Mac OS X computers will lose time synchronization even when the "Set date & time automatically" option is selected in the Date & Time preference pane. To temporarily resolve the issue, simply deselect and then reselect that checkbox.
To permanently resolve the issue, you can modify the default values in the time synchronization configuration file. The defaults require several hours of constant access to the time server in order to establish synchronization. If the initial sync gets interrupted (by the computer going to sleep, for example), the subsequent synchronization will not take place, causing the computer to eventually drift from the correct time. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
In what I hope will be a recurring theme, here's a story about three unexpectedly useful MIDI gadgets that won't break the bank. Don't let their diminutive price tags put you off; there's a wealth of music-making potential lurking underneath. -- O'Reilly Digital Media.
Wired has put up its predictions for the coming year, in technology, internet, and entertainment news. Despite their claim that they are 'wild' predictions, a lot of them make some sense.
As Moore's Law runs out of steam, the big leaps in computer technology are coming from hard-drive manufacturers. How about a 300-terabit iPod in a few years -- big enough to store the entire uncompressed Library of Congress? Rob Beschizza tours Seagate's labs in Pittsburgh. -- Wired.
