Battery Update 1.2 updates battery firmware and improves battery functionality.
After Battery Update has been installed, each battery you insert into your MacBook or MacBook Pro will be updated automatically. Your computer's power cord must be connected and plugged into a working power source.
Computers and music have been linked since the earliest days of the mainframe, when giant machines controlled primitive synthesizers. Recently, however, a significant advancement has taken place in the field of computer music with the development of software that can not only transcribe polyphonic music in real time, but can also play back complex harmonies alongside human performers. For instance, at the annual Music Information Retrieval Exchange (MIREX) competition, Christopher Raphael of Indiana University demonstrated a system that can understand live music well enough to accompany a musician. -- Science News.
New technologies often have unintended uses. Take the iPod as a case in point. It was developed with the intention of playing music (and later videos), but its applications now go well beyond that. Here are 10 surprising uses, some of which involve fighting crime, saving lives, and throwing meaner curve balls. -- Open Culture.
This article describes how customers with portable computers running Mac OS X 10.4.x or later can determine the number of cycles on a battery. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
Samsung Electronics has begun mass producing 16GB NAND flash, the highest capacity memory chip now available. The company said it will fabricate the devices in 51 nanometers (nm). -- Macsimum News.
Apple has been granted a patent (number 20070094302) for a "method and apparatus for mapping objects to multiple tables of a database" by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. It concerns the mapping of data to objects in an object-oriented environment. -- Macsimum News.
As hard as Steven P. Jobs has worked to convey the image of an above-the-fray visionary, that's not quite the reality. -- New York Times.
Intel-based Mac OS X users now have yet another virtualization solution to choose from now that Innotek has announced a Mac version of its VirtualBox virtualization software. -- InfoWorld.
Right before she had left, she had just gotten her iBook back from the Apple store geniuses for more out-of-warranty-yet-free repairs to the hinge. Unfortunately, once at home, her iBook shut down and then subsequently would not boot. She called me at work and asked me to take care of it while she was gone, and then made her way to the airport. -- hhoyiis.
Apple Inc, will be on campus next week to demonstrate Final Cut Studio and Final Cut Server. This is a free event. Come early to get a good seat.
Monday, May 7
10:30 - 12:30
University Center
Room 226-227
iQuiz is a brand new, flashy iPod game from Apple that allows users to create custom games and run them using the iQuiz interface. In this tutorial, Erica Sadun shows how to create custom iQuiz files and provides sample code and files. -- O'Reilly MacDevCenter.
Although Steve Jobs crafted a recent manifesto against DRM, plenty of industry executives are still skeptical of his commitment to DRM-free music, believing that the manifesto was political positioning. How Apple responded has left them between a rock and a hard place. -- Ars Technica.
Parallels has launched a new network today aimed at bringing together developers from the Mac, Windows, and Linux communities in order to write Parallels-compatible Virtual Appliances. -- Ars Technica.
When Fred D. Anderson abruptly left Apple's board last October as questions about the company's stock options practices grew, a former federal regulator said it looked as if the board "threw Fred under the bus." This week Mr. Anderson has been somewhere closer to the driver's seat. -- New York Times.
The recent kerfuffle over the effects of Apple's Security Update 2007-004 raises once again the question of how to deal with system updates. MacFixIt has published some tutorials on this topic (Startup failure, Re-installing components damaged by updates), and whenever an update is published we repeat our standard advice on how to update safely, but readers might like to be reminded explicitly of our position in this regard.
We do not insist upon the full "goat-sacrifice" approach to updates. Some people recommend rather elaborate procedures: back up before updating; both before and after updating, clear caches, repair permissions, and run DiskWarrior; and so forth. None of this is likely to do any harm, but if updating is made overly complicated, users won't do it at all or, even worse, will just be confused.
On the other hand, it is reasonable to accept the premise that Apple's Software Update, as presently implemented, is inherently dangerous. An application is going to download important system components and replace my existing components with them, while I'm actually using the computer? You've got to be kidding! In fact, the goal during system component installation should be just the opposite, namely, to minimize use of the computer during installation.
Based on that premise, here are is a simple, minimalist procedure for performing system updates.
[Note: This procedure cannot guarantee that a system update will not break, or appear to break, some functionality of your computer. System updates can be badly written; and even when they are well written, computers are complicated, and Apple can't predict every possible contingency and configuration.]
As your company brings in more Macintosh computers, you need a bit of advice to integrate the Apple systems into your existing IT infrastructure. Head off the biggest concerns with these hints from leading Mac OS X experts. -- CIO.
Dino Dai Zovi wrote the winning exploit in last week's CanSecWest MacBook Pro hacking contest. I interviewed Dai Zovi via email earlier this week. -- Daring Fireball.
Flip4Mac, the pretty-much-indispensable freeware utility that steps in where Windows Media Player left off years ago and allows QuickTime components to be installed in order to view Windows Media files, has been updated to version 2.1.1.70 in a public beta release.
There are some applications that I just can't live without.
A week or so ago, I performed a complete re-install of my main working computer. Part of the process included going through my Applications folder and trashing every app that I just didn't need, cutting it down to the bare minimum. As it turned out, I only ended up keeping half of all my existing apps in the new set-up.
And another thing was finding out what apps I have to have around, because without them my Mac feels like it's missing something. Here they are. -- O'Reilly MacDevCenter.
If you're an Aperture user, there's a good chance that you haven't taken a look at iPhoto in a while. Why go back to iPhoto when Aperture's tool set is so powerful? Three reasons in particular: books, cards, and calendars. Aperture doesn't allow you to design greeting cards and calendars, but since you can see your Aperture library in iPhoto, you can access all these creation tools. Plus, iPhoto is designed for consumers so its built-in templates are professionally designed and look great. As an example, let's take a look at how to get your Aperture photos into an iPhoto calendar. -- O'Reilly Digital Media.
Looking at the photo prints from your Washington, D.C., vacation can prompt memories of being at real, three-dimensional places like the Lincoln Memorial. But what if you could actually walk into your photograph and stand at Lincoln's feet all over again--or at least zoom inside a 3-D version of your image on a computer screen? A new Web service called Fotowoosh promises to deliver such an experience, courtesy of computer-vision researchers at Carnegie Mellon University, in Pittsburgh. -- MIT Technology Review.
Apple said Wednesday it just completed the most profitable March quarter in the company's history, where earnings rose 88 percent, helped by sales of nearly 1.52 million Macs and 10.5 million iPods. -- Apple.
Apple, which on Wednesday announced its most profitable March quarter in history, held a financial conference call with analysts and members of the media. In-depth coverage of the topics discussed during that call follow. -- AppleInsider.
Apple said Wednesday it will leverage its proven capability in the area of software development to gradually add new software features and applications to its iPhone and Apple TV products free of charge, providing its customers with the "greatest possible experience." -- AppleInsider.
The first ever Insomnia Photo Festival challenges you to shoot the perfect picture in just one day. On Friday, April 27 at 5 p.m. Eastern (2 p.m. Pacific), we will post a photography assignment for you to complete. From that time, you will have 24 hours to finish and submit your ideal image.
After the entries are posted to our web gallery, we will make them available for the public to view and rate. The top 25 highest rated photos through May 16, 2007, will then be judged by our panel of experts.
We will designate winners in two categories: the audience's choice and the judges' choice. Grand prize winning photographers will receive a 15" MacBook Pro, a copy of Aperture, and an 80GB iPod for their portable portfolio. -- Apple.
This Test has been used for over 50 years and has pretty much done it with great accuracy. If you don't score high, remember, you can always improve.
Apple is paving the way for free enhancements to the iPhone and Apple TV by making its accounting methods clear from the start. -- c|net.
There are many things in life you can't ever have enough of; money, gadgets and of course hard drive space. In the ever going space race Hitachi's Deskstar 7K1000 is the next big step in storage capacity last month. With this much storage space you can store 250,000 songs or 1,000 hours of SDTV or 250 hours of HDTV or 333,300 photos or even 520 iTunes music store movies. And if you've got $399 to blow, it can be all yours.
Want to re-index a folder--or even an entire volume--for Spotlight (part of Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger)? Just do this:
Spotlight will re-index the contents of the item you initially dragged to the list.
Note: You can only add folders or items to the Privacy tab that you have ownership permissions for. For more information about ownership and permissions, see this article and this one. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
One of the Mac's lesser known and under-utilized features is its ability to respond to your speech. It's called Speakable Items. You may get odd stares as you start issuing commands into your Mac's microphone -- but you'll be impressed by what you can accomplish. -- The Mac Observer.
Yahoo recently announced a deal with Gracenote to offer song lyrics through its online music service, but it looks like the agreement won't be exclusive. Gracenote, formerly known as CDDB, is in discussions with other digital music providers including Apple. -- The iPod Observer.
A little while ago I was asked how to view samples of all the fonts installed on a Mac and I pointed the person a shareware application (FontBook).
Come to find out this was unnecessary. Apple provides and Applescript which does the same thing. And if you need it to do more then you can make a copy and edit it.
Applications/Applescript/Example scripts/Font Book/Create Font Sample.scpt
The script writes the names of the fonts with small examples into TextEdit. Which you can just look at in discard or print. Very cool.
Reuters reports on comments by Apple's Steve Jobs about the possibility of subscription-based music sales for iTunes.
According to Jobs "never say never, but customers don't seem to be interested in it". The article suggests that he is unlikely to give into pressure from record labels to offer a subscription model for music on iTunes.
Meanwhile, Apple is expected to push for the elimination of digital rights management protections (DRM) on more songs. EMI and Apple first announced that EMI's catalog would become available on iTunes without DRM in May. According to Jobs the other music companies are "thinking very hard about it right now."
When Flash content embedded in Web pages will not play, there are a few generally successful options for dealing with the problem. -- MacFixIt.
Xsilva Systems' LightSpeed 2.0 is a multi-user Point of Sale system that includes storage of product and customer details, quoting and invoicing, iSight integration, service repair booking, integrated purchasing and inventory, and more. This release is a Universal Binary and adds an iTunes-like browser, live document and image previews, a revamped "floating" Point of Sale interface, business and inventory management tools, an optional integrated Web Store module, multi-store inventory lookups, and other improvements. LightSpeed is priced starting at $749 for Mac OS X 10.4.
Apple's stock surged past $100 in post-market trading on Wednesday evening after the company announced record March quarter profits of $770 million. The company's stock was up nearly 8 percent to $102.89 in pre-market trading, according to the latest data with several analysts expected to raise their targets. Setting a $140 price target, analyst Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray noted that Apple reported 38 percent upside to analyst expected earnings-per-share (EPS) based on higher gross margins and that the company shipped 1.52 million Macs, ahead of the 1.45 million estimates. The firm believes that Apple is not at the peak of its EPS upside following the three strongest quarters in the company's history. The upside, Munster said, will be driven by three catalysts: the forthcoming iPhone, new product introductions expected in the June and September quarter -- which could include an video iPod, tablet Mac, or other new consumer product -- and continued Mac market share gains.
I can not even begin to explain the iGrill.
Apple's Boot Camp is software that enables Intel-powered Macs to boot from Windows. It turns Macs into duel-boot machines: You can either boot the Mac from Mac OS X or from Windows. Unlike virtualization products like Parallels Desktop, CrossOver Mac and VMware Fusion, Boot Camp does not give you access to Mac OS X and Windows at the same time. With Boot Camp and Windows installed, you boot Windows by holding the Option key down while restarting. You then select the drive partition that contains Windows.
Boot Camp is still Beta (prerelease) software that is a free download at the Apple web site. Apple plans to include the finished version with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, expected this summer. Apple will make the finished Boot Camp available for Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger, but there is speculation that Apple will charge for it.
The Boot Camp installer assistant "dynamically creates" a hard drive partition for Windows without erasing the Mac data. Boot Camp provides drivers for Windows to support the Mac keyboard and various hardware and peripherals from within Windows. Apple says that Boot Camp runs Windows "completely natively."
The most common problem with the Boot Camp beta is various types of keyboard issues. Readers report different keyboard issues with different versions of the beta.
MacWindows' Boot Camp Beta: Reports and Tips provides reader information and tips on Boot Camp.
We've used iMovie for a couple of years to make movies (well, short videos). It's a great tool: Easy to use, and inexpensive! Here, in a nutshell, is how you can do it too. We'll show you how to do it without an expensive camcorder -- from start to finish, and on the cheap. We're slanting our tutorial to those of you who have digital cameras (use the movie mode -- you won't regret it!).
If you are looking for detailed instructions, such as how to adjust sound levels or put in transitions or special effects, you better look elsewhere. We're going to give you the bare minimum you need to get into iMovie and make a movie, fast. So let's go! -- Macinstruct.
Handbrake is the multi-purpose DVD converter to formats that we normal humans appreciate and can use. Handbrake converts from the weird DVD protected VOB format to Mp4 which we can view in Quicktime, the iPod, iTunes or Front Row. (Handbrake also does other formats but you're on your own there). -- Two A Day.
David Sobotta spent nearly twenty very successful years at Apple Inc.
I recently read John Martellaro's Leopard's Delay is a Leadership Failure and many of the comments that have been made since he wrote the article. I also just read the Wall Street Journal article, "Ex-Finance Chief Says Jobs Misled Him on Options."
In a rather unique way both articles talk to the real environment at Apple. It is one that churns out the products we all love so much and yet ends up with so few people who have worked at Apple having positive feelings about the company. -- Applepeels.
In an effort to ensure that every student, faculty member and researcher has access to the computer resources they need, Ohio University announced today it will restrict the use of all peer-to-peer, or P2P, file-sharing on the campus computer network. -- Ohio University.
OIT's Innovative Technology Center is co-sponsoring a Digital Media Tournament. The audio podcasting tournament is open to students and faculty at universities throughout Tennessee. Submit your 3- to 5-minute audio podcast by Fri, May 4 2007.
Wasting little time in validating an earlier leak, Apple on Tuesday posted a new game for fifth-generation iPods in the iTunes Store. Though basically a graphically enhanced version of the built-in Music Quiz with trivia sharing features, iQuiz is notable as one of the first games to break Apple's previously unshakable $5 price point for games, available through both the American and Canadian stores for just 99 cents.
While former Apple CFO Fred Anderson early Tuesday went to great expense to avoid facing US government charges, his previous employer won't be forced into the same dilemma, the Securities and Exchange Commission said Tuesday afternoon.
The SEC has issued an official statement that effectively wipes the slate clean for Apple and its problematic stock option grants, saying that the company's eagerness to make amends left little reason to consider punishment.
"Apple's cooperation consisted of, among other things, prompt self-reporting, an independent internal investigation, the sharing of the results of that investigation with the government, and the implementation of new controls designed to prevent the recurrence of fraudulent conduct," the release said.
The only outstanding issue appears to be Apple's prior legal counsel Nancy Heinen, who still faces charges from the US federal agency.
Last month, Jonathan M. Gitlin reviewed the science database application, Papers. Back then, it was still in public preview. But last night, the talented duo behind this marvelous app, Mekandtosj, announced that Papers 1.0 was ready for the big time. -- Ars Technica.
Here's the bummer of a problem that busts your high with your new Intel Mac: Virtual PC 7 (VPC7) won't run on Intel Macs, and it won't be updated. But here's the upside: Do not buy a new Windows XP or Windows XP Pro if you already have it in Virtual PC 7. You can use your VPC7 version in Parallels with ease. It's as simple as using Parallels Transporter feature. -- Mac OS X Hints.
Rogue Amoeba, makers of audio applications like Airfoil and Audio Hijack, has released version 1.5 of Fission, its lossless audio editor for MP3, AAC, Apple Lossless and AIFF audio files.
The new version features full audio insertion support, which allows audio to be copied and pasted into both single or multiple files. A new Gain Adjustment feature allows for individual volumes to be manually increased or decreased and the program now supports cue sheet files, auto-complete Inspector fields, a new Album Artist tag for the Inspector component and several minor bug fixes.
In this new MacDC series, Jeremiah Foster presents an overview of graphical toolkits for Apple's OS X. This first article looks at wxPython, including installation instructions and breaking down some sample code. If you've been wanting to use your Python programming skills to develop for OS X, you'll want to learn about wxPython. -- O'Reilly MacDevCenter.
The prototype for a revolutionary new general-purpose computer processor, which has the potential of reaching trillions of calculations per second, has been designed and built by a team of computer scientists at The University of Texas at Austin.
The new processor, known as TRIPS (Tera-op, Reliable, Intelligently adaptive Processing System), could be used to accelerate industrial, consumer and scientific computing. -- Science Blog.
Hey there, college seniors! Looking for a great first job in beautiful Austin, Texas? Know a lot about phones and iPods? Apple is looking for you! Yes, the signs are out that the iPhone is really almost here: Apple is hiring iPhone tech support representatives, and you could get in on the ground floor. It looks like a typical tech support job for Apple, but I found this quite funny:
Preferred Qualifications:
Now, one interpretation of the bolded line items is that Apple recognizes that many, if not most of its iPhone customers will be Windows users, not Mac people. I prefer to believe that Apple understands that Windows users won't be able to figure out how to troubleshoot their own problems. The Mac folks will be fine. Please note, by the way: It's doubly important to act independently and be self-motivated for this job!
Apple's video editing software, even at the low end in the form of iMovie, has had HD support for some years. DVD Player (mysteriously not updated a week ago along with the rest of the Final Cut Studio suite) will play HD content burned to regular DVD media and DVD Studio Pro will even author HD DVD projects, but no Blu-ray so far, even though Apple is on the board of directors of the Blu-ray Disc Association. In the Spymac article, Michael Simon speculates that the delayed Leopard release could pave the way for Blu-ray compatible Macs by the end of the year.
Everyone's been abuzz about what the super-secret Panic app has been making the rounds is all about. There have been a few leaked screenshots here and there, but now the cat is finally out of the bag. Panic introduced today its new app, called Coda. What does Coda do? In simple terms, it's like Dreamweaver without the WYSIWYG, and cooler. Coda integrates SubEthaEdit's collaborative editing and sharing with Transmit's FTP engine, CSSEdit, and various code tips, with previewing in a WebKit view. -- Ars Technica.
Beta users of Adobe's newest CS3 software will want to run a cleanup script before installing the full versions, the company pointed out last week, lest they be plagued with installation problems. -- Ars Technica.
Students in university's Interactive Telecommunications Program take on challenge of coming up with innovative multimedia designs. [Any guess as to what hardware they are using to do it? Aw, you peeked.] -- c|net.
Instead of debuting Leopard at the Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco, CA, this June 2007, Apple Inc. (AAPL) will release "a near final version" of Mac OS X 10.5, a sort of preview of the complete feature set at that time. Bad news? Perhaps for the fierce Mac users, but overall? Hmmm. Let me check the facts first. -- Seeking Alpha.
It took me a while, but ever since I've gotten my head around Smart Folders (and Smart Playlists and Smart Groups, etc.), I've started to think about the way I use my Mac a bit differently...So, in the interest of spreading the love, here's four Mail.app Smart Mailboxes that have been rocking my world over the last months. -- 43 Folders.
Because Apple creates the hardware, operating system and many built-in applications, Apple computers are truly integrated systems with vastly superior support. AppleCare offers a range of service and support products to meet your needs. In addition, there are numerous online resources within the AppleCare Support website that provide valuable information and instruction.
For information about all AppleCare Products and Services, please visit www.apple.com/support/products.
For questions related to AppleCare Protection Plan, please visit the AppleCare FAQ page at http://www.apple.com/support/products/faqs.html.
When AirPort Utility 5.1 or later is opened, it automatically checks all accessible AirPort Extreme and AirPort Express Base Stations' firmware. If a newer (later) firmware version is available from Apple, you'll be notified and presented with onscreen instructions to download and install the base station(s) firmware.
AirPort Utility is located in the Utilities folder inside the Applications folder on a computer using Mac OS X, and (on a computer using Windows) in Start > All Programs > AirPort. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
A good many mouse problems are directly caused by the accumulation of gunk (definition: dust, dirt, residue of spilt beer, all glued together by skin oils and associated fatty acids, wax esters, etc.). Certain kinds of gunk can actually create small voltage bridges on circuit boards in addition to mechanical problems. Humm, heavy metal music, nah. -- Mac OS X Hints.
Businessweek reports on Intel's upcoming mobile initiative, with a report confirming that the Intel "Santa Rosa" platform will be launching next month (May).
The Intel executive also noted that Intel's Santa Rosa platform will start shipping in notebooks from next month. The mobile platform will comprise an Intel Core 2 Duo processor, the mobile Intel 965 Express chipset family, 802.11n Wi-Fi connectivity and optional Intel Turbo memory that has been touted to improve application performance.
The Santa Rosa platform was previously detailed in February. It is essentially a mobile platform from Intel which incorporates the Core 2 Duo, 800Mhz front speed bus, improved graphics chipset and Intel's Robson flash-based caching technology.
This technology could correspond with reports of an Apple flash-based laptop have been ongoing for months. The most recent expectations have predicted them coming from Apple in "second half of 2007".
The MacRumours Buyer's Guide points to MacBook and MacBook Pros approaching the end of their product cycles, based on historical update timeframes.
A friend was having problems registering his Mac on UT's wireless network (NOMAD.) I told him to bring it down for me to look at since what I was telling him over the phone wasn't working. I could not register it to via Nomad but I could with a direct ethernet connection.
The major problem turned out to be that the Mac need updates (he was running 10.4.6.) Once ALL the updates had finished (did you know a Mac has to be plugged in to run a firmware update?) then he had to register the Mac ON Nomad and turn AirPort off/on.
He did say that some colorful metaphors were necessary as well until he turned AirPort off/on.
Several Apple patents have appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Most involve iPod and iPod accessories, but one is for a "hybrid ground grid for printed circuit board." -- Macsimum News.
