Java for Mac OS X 10.5 Update 1 adds Java SE 6 version 1.6.0_05 to your Mac.
The next carrier to offer subsidies on the iPhone may not be overseas. According to new "inside sources" to Fortune, AT&T plans to slash prices on the next-gen iPhone from Apple, right here in the US of A. AT&T allegedly plans to cut the price by up to $200, although the subsidy would only be available for new AT&T customers that buy the phones from AT&T--not through Apple Stores. -- Ars Technica.
Jordan Bunnell, an independent contractor for Get Local, was apparently among those disappointed by the MacBook Air's wireless technology, but he actually decided to do something about it. Not content with what are now apparently old 'n busted USB mobile network cards, Bunnell cracked open his MacBook Air and went for the new hotness: an internal EVDO card. Posting pictures and general instructions of the procedure online, Bunnell was able to disassemble a Verizon USB727 Aircard and hardwire it inside his MacBook Air.
Fortune's Scott Moritz has filed a report claiming that AT&T will subsidize the price of the hotly awaited 3G iPhone down to start at $199 with a two-year agreement, which would be a clear sign that the company is serious about starting to move some massive numbers of the device when it drops in June.
Look what arrived on our doorstep today! That's right -- the shiny, expensive new iMac that's now equipped with that funky custom and/or overclocked 3.06GHz CPU. Take a look at us wildly unboxing and handling the behemoth in the gallery below, and get a load of its fairly impressive Xbench scores after the break. -- Engadget.
While greeted with heaps of initial skepticism, forum jockeys over at OQO Talk now seem convinced that a junior member by the name of TRF has successfully hacked a OQO PC to run OS X Leopard. -- Engadget.
AT&T introduced a new Text Accessibility Plan (TAP) for the iPhone today developed with the help of representatives from the hearing and speech impaired community. The plan was developed for people who are deaf, hearing impaired or have another speech or hearing loss disability. -- iPhone Atlas.
Apple offers a way to look inside installer packages via contextual menus, but it can be even easier than that. Thanks to Leopard's Quick Look feature and a free plug-in, you can check a package's contents with a quick tap of the Space bar -- The Mac Observer.
I stumbled on FreeLDAP.org. I think this is the only free LDAP server available on the Internet that could be used by multiple users accessing the same database. The setup instructions on the site do not work with the Mac's Address Book. However, while browsing through their forums, I found this setup which works for me on my 10.4 system. -- Mac OS X Hints.
Rather than using Screen Sharing or Finder's file sharing for Back to My Mac, I often find it easier to use ssh. Until today I didn't know how to connect to a Back To My Mac computer via ssh. It turns out that it's very easy. -- Mac OS X Hints.
Amazon has the 1TB Seagate Barracuda internal hard drive on sale today for just $269.99 (52% off.) [I know I'm old because I can remember paying $600 for a 40MB HD. At today's rates it would cost me a penny. -mam]
Apple has updated its iMac Developer Note with a few technical details on its new models:
This developer note gives a technical description of the 20" iMac computer and the 24" iMac computer incorporating the Intel Core 2 Duo processor on 45 nm process technology and introduced in April 2008, to help developers design products compatible with these computers. The note provides information about the computers' internal design, input-output features, and expansion capabilities.
Microsoft has released Messenger 7 for the Mac, featuring "new support for Mac OS X Bonjour instant networking technology" and "increased support for Office Communications Server 2007." It requires Mac OS X 10.4.9 or later.
Apple has been granted patents involving QuickTime, iTunes and the iPod Dock by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. -- Macsimum News.
So have you ever wondered if it's really worth it to plunk down the extra $1,300 for an SSD-equipped MacBook Air? Or have you been tempted to swap the current mechanical hard drive out of your portable and slide one of these high tech bad boys inside? Our test results will likely surprise you. -- Computerworld.
Contrary to what some of my friends now think, I don't actually recommend that everyone run out and get a Mac. Even though I've personally been delighted by my Mac experience I know there are others that simply cannot move to a Mac from Windows. If people aren't willing to make changes to the way they do things chances are their switch will fail and you will likely hear no end of grief from the person that's getting the machine based on your recommendation. -- David Alison's Blog.
I'm usually pretty good about keeping my Macs clean, but for various reasons I'd neglected to thoroughly clean the inside of my Mac Pro for quite some time. I'd noticed it gradually getting louder over the previous months, generally an indication that the fans were having to work harder to keep it cool, so I'd cleared away dust from the case's vents. But I kept putting off the necessary take-it-outside-and-blast-away-all-the-dust-that-had-settled-on-the-components cleaning. -- Macworld.
What notebook computer does Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer prefer for his presentations?
Why, a MacBook Pro of course!
Terminal, the Bash shell,and command line applications still have an important place in the Mac's GUI environment. Here are 10 Unix command line tips that even the most Mac GUI loving user will find useful for the Mac toolbox. -- O'Reilly Digital Media.
The design director of NYTimes.com, Khoi Vinh, recently answered readers' questions in the Times's occasional feature 'Ask the Times.' He was asked how the Web site looks so consistently nice and polished no matter which browser or resolution is used to access it. His answer begins: 'It's our preference to use a text editor, like HomeSite, TextPad or TextMate, to "hand code" everything, rather than to use a wysiwyg (what you see is what you get) HTML and CSS authoring program, like Dreamweaver. We just find it yields better and faster results.'
iMac ATI Radeon HD Graphics Firmware Update 1.0.1 is for iMac computers with an ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro or ATI Radeon HD 2400 XT graphics card installed, running Mac OS X 10.5.2 or later.
Apple Monday updated its all-in-one iMac line with the latest Intel Core 2 Duo processors and the most powerful graphics ever available in an iMac. With prices starting at just $1,199, iMac includes faster processors with 6MB L2 cache and a faster 1066 MHz front-side bus across the entire line, and 2GB of memory standard in most models. The 24-inch iMac now offers a 3.06 GHz Intel processor and the high-performance NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GS graphics as options, extending iMac's lead as the ultimate all-in-one desktop computer for both consumers and professionals. -- Apple PR.
All of the microprocessors used in Apple's new iMac line announced Monday are part of a special run of Intel's existing mobile processor lineup rather than an early of Centrino 2 models, an Intel spokesperson confirmed to Electronista.
Although the processors match the same core clock rates and 1,066MHz system bus speeds as those of the chip maker's upcoming platform due this June, the processors are instead said to be unlisted speed grades that include special support for the faster bus speeds (up from 800MHz), produced at Apple's request.
This reportedly allowed the Mac maker maintain an iMac logic-board design based on the same "Santa Rosa" chipset used in the previous generation models.
Also of interest is the thermal envelope of the 3.06 GHz chip, which demands 55 watts of power in order to boost past the "official" 2.8GHz top speed of Intel's current mobile lineup, and is designed for "mobile on desktop" systems, such as large gaming notebooks and crossover PCs.
Intel's current line of mobile processors top out at 45 watts, with most consuming 35 watts or less. However, the chip maker says its upcoming Centrino 2-era processors will consume 25W and 35W in most models.
In the limited time they've been working together, Apple has also seen help from Intel in procuring early or modified processors for its 8-Core Mac Pro (early 3.0 GHz quad-core Xeon), iMac (early 2.8GHz Core 2 Extreme), and the MacBook Air (custom 1.6 and 1.8GHz Core 2 Duos).
When you find a link for a PDF while surfing the Web, Safari lets you open it right in the browser with a single click. In Mac OS X Leopard, Safari also offers new PDF controls that let you zoom in, zoom out, save that PDF file, or open it in Preview. -- Apple Quick Tip of the Week.
Although Apple Stores are normally regarded as fun places to visit and a good place to buy Apple products, they can still be somewhat intimidating. Between purchases and repairs, Apple owners come across a fair number of company policies that might sometimes frustrate them. Luckily, a mysterious Mac Specialist has provided the Consumerist with a list of seven tips related to the Apple Store shopping and service experience.
It may be the year 2008, but a whole lot of sucktacular software still rears its ugly head on PC's everywhere, even when better-behaved options are freely available. Whether it's molasses-slow bloatware, shameless adware, anemic default apps, or "trial period expired!" nagware, it's time to replace stinky Win software with its superior alternatives. -- Lifehacker.
Time Machine by default does not run when no user is logged in. But that doesn't mean it can't. -- Mac OS X Hints.
In the past, Safari users have run into problems accessing a lot of Web sites that just weren't built to be compatible with Apple's browser. That's frustrating enough when it's a business site, but when it's a government site that provides information and services to which the user has a real right of access, it's downright unfair. However, with Mac's growth and Safari's push to Windows, has the situation improved? -- MacNewsWorld.
This time around in Mac 101 I thought it would be good to talk about uninstalling applications on the Mac, especially for the recent switchers out there. Unlike Windows, Mac OS X does not have a native utility for uninstalling applications. Most (though not all) applications are installed just by dragging and dropping them into the Applications folder, and most are similarly got rid of by dragging them to the trash. -- The Unofficial Apple Weblog.
Jim Dalrymple, still going strong on his recording project, knew he wanted to write "a traditional type blues song--nothing too complicated, just a good slow blues number in A." But even though he knew what he wanted, laying down some tracks proved harder than he thought. Until, that is, Dalrymple remembered Magic GarageBand. Just 45 seconds later, he "had the perfect slow blues song playing, while I filled in the leads." -- Macworld.
Abilene Christian University in Texas, which made headlines in February after announcing its plans to distribute iPhones to all incoming freshmen next fall. The school said it wanted to evaluate the iPhone's potential for students and faculty, but many called it nothing short of a gimmick to gain headlines. Yet that's not all ACU is doing; it's also outsourcing much of its IT infrastructure (such as e-mail) over to Google Apps for Education and making use of the collaborative services that Google has to offer.
Check in on The Chronicle of Higher Education's online Q&A chat with ACU's CIO, Kevin Roberts, to learn more about ACU's reasoning behind the move and its progress to date. ACU is moving quickly to assess whether or not the iPhone is an educational tool in its own right or just another cellphone with a browser. Roberts says that the school is doing everything it can to prove that the iPhone pilot at ACU isn't a gimmick.
There's grand talk throughout the tech world about a wave of new networks and wireless innovation that will provide better Internet access, deliver streaming video and foster an array of consumer-friendly features. -- Mercury News.
Apple this week bought a fabless chip company called PA Semiconductor and pundits far and wide are trying to explain the deal with broadly varying ideas, some of which are close but none seem to really understand what the deal is about. In the short term this acquisition means precisely nothing to Apple users. In the long term it could be quite significant, however, and gives a number of tantalizing hints about Apple's hardware strategy. -- I, Cringely.
This week, Apple shocked the semiconductor industry by acquiring P.A. Semi, a 150-person chip design company.
Opinions differ on why Steve Jobs chose to take this additional risk of vertical integration when every chip vendor on the planet is falling all over itself to sell its wares to Apple.
My belief: The computer industry is heading back toward vertical integration. -- Forbes.
Tennessee is considering supplementing its revenue shortfall with a tax on digital downloads. The state's Digital Products/iPOD Tax, which is part of the "Technical Corrections" bill, is still in preliminary stages and plans to include nearly any type of digital media download. -- iPod Observer.
Here's a three-step process to create a Time Machine backup on a network-attached storage (NAS) unit. -- Mac OS X Hints.
Until now, I used a combination of Preview (to modify the EXIF orientation value) and PhotoToolCM (to do lossless JPG rotations) to achieve images that look correct both in Preview and in non-EXIF/web apps. Well, I finally found a program that both rotates the image and the thumbnail consistently! -- Mac OS X Hints.
Many (but not yet all) YouTube videos are available in higher-quality QuickTime versions, and many sites have published methods of downloading those higher quality versions. However, this blog post contains a slick bookmarklet that actually replaces the YouTube Flash video player with the embedded QuickTime player, then plays the high quality video in the QuickTime player. -- Mac OS X Hints.
Following early rumors that the iMac would finally see revisions next week, we've heard from multiple retail sources that new iMac part numbers have indeed appeared in their systems. -- MacRumors.
An Apple patent (number 20080098241) for a method and apparatus for implementing a sleep proxy for services on a network has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. The invention relates to computer networks. More specifically, the present invention relates to a method and an apparatus for implementing a sleep proxy for services on a network. -- .
Just ran into a time consuming hiccup trying to work with a Clone CD Image. I hope the rather detailed explanation below will help someone else deal with a Clone CD Image faster on his Mac. -- Foliovision.
You can indeed get a decent laptop from Dell or Hewlett-Packard for less than the $1,099 that Apple's least expensive Mac laptop, the MacBook, costs. But, in my view, the Mac has a better, faster operating system, better built-in software and is far less likely to expose you to viruses and other malicious software. -- Wall Street Journal.
If you have an iPhone, you're doing a lot more than just making calls. Recently, I read an interesting report regarding iPhone use. Market research firm iSuppli found that many people use iPhones in ways that differ markedly from other phones, especially in categories that until recently weren't that important to most users. -- Computerworld.
This update addresses issues and improves compatibility with different versions of Microsoft Windows running on a Mac computer using Boot Camp. It is highly recommended for all Boot Camp users.
No matter what OS you use, you need to think about security. But what happens when you don't have time to think? Turn to Ars Technica!
Ars Technica covers five freeware or shareware security tools for Macs OS X, all recommended by Ars staffers. Running behind a firewall and a NAT router can keep many threats at bay, and skeptical computing can keep most people safe on the Internet, but it never hurts to have a toolbox of well-crafted apps that you can reach into should your machine be breached.
The first entry on the list for Mac OS X is the trusty System Preferences panel. There are all kinds of security-related goodies there in the Security Panel. There, you can control physical access to your machine by requiring a password to wake the computer up from sleep or the screen saver, or automatically logging you out after a preset period of inactivity. The Security pane also gives you access to the FileVault and Mac OS X's built-in firewall. The firewall in Mac OS X can be set to allow only essential services or control access by application; if you want more granular software firewall control, see below.
Every Mac shipped since 2000 has the ability to set a password in Open Firmware. A firmware password prevents a user with physical access to the computer from starting up from an optical disk, a network boot volume, a separate drive connected in Target Disk Mode, or into single-user mode. It also requires a password to be entered before the system will start up from its regular boot drive. If you're in an environment where you need a little extra physical security, this is a very easy way to lock down your Mac a bit tighter.
Yes, viruses, trojans, worms, and their ilk are few and far between right now. But with Apple's market share growing much faster than the rest of the market, at some point, the bad guys may realize that there's a large and relatively untapped market. Should that day come, you'll want to be prepared.
Although there are several commercial virus scanners for the Mac platform, there's a free, tried-and-true open-source alternative: ClamAV. The app is available in a specially-built Mac OS X version and receives just as much (if not more) attention as the for-pay alternatives. By setting it to auto-update and keep a close watch on your Downloads and Documents folders, you're already several significant steps up the security ladder.
Practically every application, widget, accessory, video codec, and system service now phones home (or elsewhere) in the age of always-on Internet. Chances are, you probably don't even know which ones are going where, when they're phoning home, and why they're doing so. Little Snitch will fix that for you.
Little Snitch can get a little annoying when you fire up Dashboard and have to approve half a dozen widget network requests at once, or when you're trying to read an e-mail that has to download graphics. Unlike the majority of the other recommendations here, Little Snitch will set you back $25, but that's money well spent if you're intent on locking down your Mac as tightly as possible.
If you want more control over the software firewall in Mac OS X than System Preferences will give you, check out the free, open-source WaterRoof. Don't let the simple interface fool you: this is a powerful application that will enable you to control every aspect of IPFW, including NAT configuration, rules, port redirection, and more. You can also stay on top of all of your net connections, easily view logs, and manage your bandwidth.
For ease of use, WaterRoof includes a configuration wizard that will have your Mac firewalled in no time flat.
I've previously mentioned that Mac OS X 10.4 includes a clever feature that shows exactly where each of the items are that auto-launch every time you login to your user account. Mac OS X 10.5 includes a similar feature, but it goes a step further and can even reveal each item in the Finder. -- The Mac Observer.
This week Macsimum News is offering the final part (part four) of their four-part look at GIS (geographic information system) software for the Mac OS X. Part one can be found here, part two here and part three here.
More Apple patents involve portable devices, touch screens
A plethora of Apple patents involving portable multifunction devices and touch screens have popped up at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.
Apple patent is for media editing, creating interface
An Apple patent (number 20080098320) for a media editing and creating interface has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. The invention relates to graphical user interfaces for computer application programs, more specifically the present invention relates to a graphical user interface for editing and creating Recordable Digital Versatile Discs (DVDR's) on a personal computer or similar device.
Setting aside the news of a very strong quarter -- stronger than predicted and accomplished in a consumer market worried over the emerging economic slowdown (aka recession) -- Apple revealed renewed strength in some key segments and geographies. At the same time, executives gave a hint of Apple's vision of new product and market directions -- ZDNet Blogs.
Sun continues to pursue talks with Apple Computer to have Java applications run on Apple's iPhone while acknowledging a third party's efforts toward the same goal. -- InfoWorld.
Remember that piece of news saying IBM was expanding its Mac Pilot Program? It sure looks like more companies are drawn into what the Mac can offer, at least from a security point of view. Salesforce plans to employ 4,000 Macs for its entire staff, a piece on 9to5mac reveals, making it one of the largest enterprise software companies to use Macs. -- Softpedia.
Apple Inc. may have to face the ire of the U.S. Department of Defense following its planned acquisition of P.A. Semi Inc. The startup's PWRficient processor is designed into DoD programs in every major branch of the armed services, said one P.A. Semi customer who expects Apple will end production of the parts. -- EE Times.
Creative Mac has a large group of tutorials on Adobe Photoshop and After Effects.
I would never, ever trade a Macintosh for an HP-designed computer. For computers, whether laptops or desktops, Apple wins hands down, all the way, and with time to spare. Where Apple, in my opinion, loses ground, is in the accessories department, from mice to, yes, displays. They are clearly an afterthought: good afterthoughts, mind you, but afterthoughts still. -- O'Reilly Digital Media.
Common Criteria Tools for 10.5 is an international standard that helps to ensure the security of computer systems in a network environment for Mac OS X 10.5 or later. Common Criteria is a set of internationally agreed-upon security standards. The standards, approved by 14 nations, give IT administrators a way to evaluate the security of various IT products, including hardware and software.
Despite speculation that Apple's acquisition of PA Semiconductor was motivated by the chip maker's specific products, a new report reveals that the iPhone designer is interested more in the buyout for its promises of intellectual property and development expertise -- and may be causing a crisis for the US Department of Defense in the process. -- AppleInsider.
Apple on Wednesday announced its most profitable second quarter in company history, and held a financial conference call with analysts and members of the media. -- AppleInsider.
Following a blockbuster quarter driven by the Mac, News.com breaks down each segment of the company's business to see what might lie ahead.
Apple's products are unquestionably better when it comes to the teen market, says Jim Cramer. -- The Street.
We needed to reset the password on a Leopard system, but we didn't have the OS X install DVD available. After a few minutes of playing around, I came up with this solution. -- Mac OS X Hints.
Later this month, Microsoft will introduce Windows XP SP3, a significant, primarily security-related update for the OS. The update may introduce problems XP installations under Boot Camp. MacFixIt has received reports of issues with beta developer builds, including an inability to boot. This doesn't necessarily portend similar issues for the final release, but is cause for caution.
Also, note that you should ensure ample free space is available on your Windows partition before attempting to install Windows XP SP3, or you may be faced with the message "disk is too small to install/update." If your Windows partition is formatted with NTFS, a tool like iPartition should be able to do the job. If you use FAT, you may be forced to erase your Windows partition and start over with a bigger slice.
On Monday Macsimum News announced that, starting with its 2008-2009 school year, Freed-Hardeman University, a private Christian School in Henderson, Tennessee, will give incoming freshmen a MacBook and a choice of an iPhone or iPod touch. Now Macsimum News have more info from the university.
Microsoft's current and future operating system projects, Windows Vista, Windows Seven, and Singularity, share too much in common with Apple's failures of the mid-90s. Each project bears a striking resemblance to the three catastrophes that nearly killed Apple in the early 90s, and for many of the same core reasons. Here's why, and what this means for the future of the PC desktop, the Windows platform, and new emerging mobile markets. -- RoughlyDrafted Magazine.
Last month's launch of iPhone developer software passed unnoticed by the general public. Yet it was an event that could make 2008 a significant milestone in the evolution of the mobile phone as a platform, says Seb Janacek. -- Silicon.
Graham Rogers provides some usefull information, suggestions and resources for those who are new to Mac OS X. -- eXtensions.
WaveMaker on Wednesday announced the release of Visual Ajax Studio version 3.2, a new version of its Web application development environment. It's available for free download from the Web site.
Visual Ajax Studio enables you to create Web applications using drag and drop assembly techniques. The software supports SOAP, REST and RSS Web services and deploys a standard Java .war file.
WaveMaker offers open source tools for Web development. Visual Ajax Studio has been released under the GNU AGPL version 3 open source license (it's also available under a WaveMaker commercial license).
WaveMaker noted that Visual Ajax Studio 3.2's Mac release is a public beta version, and offers full support for Apple's Safari Web browser.
Thanks to pressures from the motion picture industry, commercial DVDs are flagged with their region of origin. You are left with two less-than-optimal solutions. The first is that you can try ripping your discs with Handbrake or Mac The Ripper. The other solution is to purchase an external Firewire or USB DVD drive and play Region 1 discs in one drive and Region 2 in the other. -- Macworld.
On the same day that Apple posted the Software Development Kit (SDK) that third-party developers can use to create image editing plug-ins for Aperture 2.1, the first image editing plug-ins from third-party developers have arrived and several others are expected to appear shortly. -- Apple.
A couple of Gartner analysts have recently claimed that Windows is "collapsing"; that it's too big, too sprawling, and too old to allow rapid development and significant new features. Although organizations like Gartner depend on trolling to drum up business, I think this time they could be onto something. "Collapsing" is overprinting decline is a more likely outcome the essence of what they're Saigon why they're saying infringes true. -- Ars Technica.
Apple apparently wants to use P.A. Semi's chips in future iPhones and iPods, which would require significant software changes and deal a blow to good friend Intel. -- c|net.
A self-admitted, longtime, pure bred, never owned anything else Mac user took a test drive of Ubuntu Linux and found it to totally cool in some ways, straightforward in others, and was shocked to find that Open Office, which is free, is hardly a watered down version of the equivalent MS Office suite. -- The Mac Observer.
Revelations from the device emulator included with Appaloosa current iPhone SDK indicate that the company has added support for true GPS hardware to the platform. This functionality could show up in the form of built-in GPS hardware, a dock-connected peripheral, or not at all Ñ but the software is ready. -- iPhone Atlas.
It's that time again. Time for me to check out the current status of creating an emergency boot drive Ñ this time one with Leopard installed. Let's cut right to the chase: the ease of creating these startup drives continues to move in one direction: from bad to worse. -- MacFixIt.
According to new data from Nielsen Online, Web traffic to the Apple Inc's sites collectively grew 13 percent year over year in the first quarter of 2008, from a three-month average monthly unique audience of 42.9 million to 48.4 million. Total minutes spent on the site grew 12 percent year over year, from 9.4 billion in Q1 2007 to 10.5 billion in Q1 2008, while total purchases at The Apple Store grew 32 percent month over month, from 322,000 purchases in January 2008 to 424,000 purchases in February 2008. iTunes, Apple Store and QuickTime were the top three fastest growing Apple Computer Web channels year over year in Q1 2008. -- MacNN.
Apple patent is for portable electronic device for instant messaging
A recent patent filing at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office, "Portable Electronic Device for Instant Messaging," indicates that Apple is getting closer to adding its own instant messaging client to the iPhone, according to PC World.
Apple patent is for translation of user interface objects between states
An Apple patent (number 7362331) for time-base, non-constant translation of user interface objects between states has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. The inventor is Bas Ording.
Apple patent involves multi-byte vector elements
An Apple patent (number 736478) for retrieving multi-byte vector elements from a byte indexed table using replicated and consecutive number added indices for each element index has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. The inventor is Ali Sazegari.
Apple patent involves real-time collaboration
An Apple patent (number 7363587) for a method and apparatus for supporting real-time collaboration has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. The invention relates generally to computer documents and more particularly to concurrent use of frameworks.
The time to get the scoop on Apple's next move is not when its charismatic founder is pitching the faithful on the computer and gadget maker's next product. It's when his minions--Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook and Chief Financial Officer Peter Oppenheimer--meet with Wall Street analysts every quarter to talk over the Cupertino, Calif., company's financial results. -- Forbes.
Many Mac users boast that their systems "just work" - the Time Capsule, in our testing delivered that experience. However, buyers need to be aware that there are some limitations. -- APC Magazine.
A while back I lamented how ever since upgrading to Leopard, my Mac Pro had been exhibiting some odd graphical glitches, mainly in the form of odd lines that would run across various windows in the Finder and apps. I eventually found that the problem was somewhat widespread, at least for owners of the quad-core Mac Pro model I ordered, and who, like me, had splurged for the $350 ATi x1900 XT card. -- Macenstein.
Unfortunately, Word 2008 doesn't support VBA. The good news is that, with a little tinkering, almost anything you could do with a VBA macro in previous versions of Word, you can now do with AppleScript in Word 2008. -- Macworld.
I started wondering how well my MacBook's battery was holding up after two years of use. After using coconutBattery to find that answer, I began wondering about other freeware and Open Source utilities to learn about temperature, motion, and UPS levels in a Mac. Here's what I found... -- O'Reilly Digital Media.
Marshall University, in Huntington, West Virginia, has become just the second US college or university to show the moxie to stand up for its students instead of instantly caving in to RIAA extortion. -- Slashdot.
If you live in the city of Bath in the UK and carry a Bluetooth-enabled device, your movements may have been secretly monitored in an experiment designed to test surveillance techniques in prisons. Researchers from Bath University recorded the movements of 10,000 Bluetooth-enabled devices during their 6-month trial. They say the experiment was a test of a technique for monitoring the interactions between prisoners in jail that could be used to work out which inmates have become closely associated. -- Slashdot.
Firmware Restoration CD 1.7 is used to restore the firmware of an Intel-based Macintosh computer. -- .
MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.5.1 fixes several issues to improve the stability of MacBook Pro computers.
Photoshop Elements 6 allows you to combine separate shots into horizontal or vertical panoramas using Elements 6's enhanced Photomerge Panorama feature based on Adobe's proprietary Photomerge to stitch together multiple photos panned across a scene into a single seamless panorama - automatically -- Applelinks.
Test shows that Word documents generated by today's version of Office 2007 don't conform to the Office Open XML standard under development by the ISO. -- c|net.
The legacy mantra of many IT managers of "no Macs" in their organization is no longer a defensible IT strategy, according to Galen Gruman, executive Editor of InfoWorld on Monday.
Be careful what you wish for. The iPhone has realized the old promise of the mobile Web. But it's not clear whether the wireless networks can handle the load. -- InfoWorld.
Through its success in recent years, Apple has set the bar high for consumer devices. Now, various companies have products in the works whose sole purpose is to take market share away from Apple, by matching what it does well and exploiting its weaknesses. -- TechNewsWorld.
Windows has developed what they feel is the next generation of computing, the tablet PC. We've seen Bill Gates strongly advocate the tablet as the true "next generation" platform for computing. But I disagree, and here's why. -- The Apple Blog.
Starting with its 2008-2009 school year, Freed-Hardeman University, a private Christian School in Henderson, Tennessee, will give incoming freshmen a MacBook and a choice of an iPhone or iPod touch, as well as Office for Mac.
It's all part of the iKnow Initiative. The purpose of this initiative, according to Freed-Hardeman, is "to understand the technological needs and expectations of our students and faculty so that we can effectively use information technology to enhance instruction and improve student learning outcomes."
Everybody loves digital cameras because they are easy to use and there's no film or developing costs involved. However, one of the big problems with digital cameras is that the media cards they save pictures on can be easily corrupted or accidentally erased. You then run the risk of losing your irreplaceable pictures of your baby's first steps, son's graduation or your trip to Hawaii. It happens all too often... Have no fear, Klix is here!
Both the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro are drool-worthy devices, the question remains as to which device performs what tasks better. The folks at Barefeats answered this question, pitting a 1.83 GHz MacBook Air against a 2.6 GHz MacBook Pro.
A culture war is brewing in the world of digital photography, with a handful of enthusiasts arguing that high-definition video tools are making traditional still cameras all but obsolete. -- MIT Technology Review.
Digital photography lets us shoot thousands of images, but keeping track of them is a growing concern. Charles Maurer looks at programs that enable you to apply keywords and other metadata to your photos so you can find them easily later. -- TidBITS.
In it's annual tribute to innovation, Businessweek invites us to meet the "world's 50 most innovative companies." Foremost among them is Apple. "Our repeat winner has rocked the wireless handset world with the iPhone, spurring rivals to imitate the touch-screen design. After just nine months on sale, it's already No. 3 in the global smartphone market." Indeed, Apple not only leads the overall rankings but also tops the Consumer Products and Technology categories and comes in second in the Entertainment and fourth in the Retail categories.
No, Apple hasn't brought back AppleWorks or made Pages freeware, or revived the late, lamented AppleWorks. I'm talking about Text Edit, the amazingly powerful and capable little word processor that comes bundled with every copy of Mac OS X. With the Leopard release of Text Edit, many users may find that it meets all of their practical word processing needs without the necessity of buying Pages, Microsoft Word, or another third-party word processor solution. Leopard's version of Text Edit can now even open MS Word files with basic formatting preserved, and save documents in Word's .doc file format. Sweet. -- Applelinks.
Normally, big discoveries in a given field come at the rate of a few a year, if that. However, the past six weeks have seen not one, but a series of announcements that may change the face of superconductivity research. Starting with a publication in the February 23rd edition of the Journal of the American Chemical Society and ending with three separate announcements from various Chinese research groups, these last few weeks have given us the description of a previously unknown class of high temperature superconductors. -- Ars Technica.
U.S. telecommunications giant AT&T has claimed that, without investment, the Internet's current network architecture will reach the limits of its capacity by 2010. -- c|net.
This is my first trip overseas with my iPhone, and it's hard to express in polite language how disappointed I am with Apple's international data roaming packages. I say "Apple's" instead of "AT&T's" because with my old Blackberry on AT&T I didn't have the problem, so I'm laying the blame at Apple's feet. -- c|net.
Scientists at the University of Glasgow have created a nanotechnology breakthrough that could increase storage capacity by 150,000 times. It could mean 500,000 GB on a single chip and inch square. -- Digital Trends.
Hardly any organization can get by without using consultants and -- here's the bad news -- most consultants aren't very good. So here is my advice on how to select and use an IT consultant followed by a grim list of the 10 most common lies told by bad consultants. -- I, Cringely.
In this hint, I'll explain how to add NTFS to the mix, and note some significant improvements upon the previous hint's awesome efforts. -- Mac OS X Hints.
For those of you who take joy in such things (and I would if I were you), it looks like I'm going to have eat a good many of the words from my initial analysis of the MacBook Air. -- Computerworld.
Banners may be the bane of web users, but BannerZest Pro has hidden depths. -- Macworld UK.
I'm not going to deny it, there are things about Apple that I like. I own an iPhone and an iPod. My wife uses a Mac. I like their design concepts and their marketing. But there are some issues that I do have with Apple, and these issues are inches from wanting me to pull the plug on my support of Apple. One of these issues is the Apple hfs+ file system. -- TechRepublic.
Macs have always been a favorite with musicians and audio engineers, and at this year's Musikmesse Frankfurt, the world's biggest trade show for musical instruments, studio technology, and accessories, you could literally see them everywhere. -- O'Reilly Digital Media.
Scheduled delivery of Apple computers to schools run by the New York City Department of Education have been temporarily suspended due to problems related to connecting to the DOE's wireless network infrastructure.
Apple is scrambling to address the WiFi connectivity issue within its Leopard operating system. The fix appears set to be included in the bug fixes of the upcoming Mac OS X 10.5.3 release, as noted in the report Successive Mac OS X 10.5.3 builds continue. -- AppleInsider.
O'Reilly has released the newest member of its "Hacks" series of books, called Big Book of Apple Hacks. The 640-page volume contains 100 hacks for all things Apple, including OS X, iPhone, iPod, and Apple TV.
A Santa Cruz woman is using Leopard's Back to My Mac remote control software to track a thief who stole her laptop. -- Cult of Mac.
This workaround fixes many of the problems reported all over about the inconsistencies syncing Gmail IMAP with Mail.app. It keeps your inbox and sidebar nice and clean with proper mail counts. All other Gmail behaviors (trash vs. archive) remain the same. -- Mac OS X Hints.
I use a 2.33Ghz MacBook Pro as the main workhorse for my production business, and I have Windows XP SP2 installed via Boot Camp to run some Windows-only software that I need to run natively (i.e., not in Fusion or Parallels). However, I soon tired of switching the boot disk from 10.5.2 to XP and back. So I came up with this little time saver by putting shortcuts to the System Preferences Startup Disk panel (in OS X) and the Boot Camp Control Panel (in Windows XP) on their respective desktops and dock. It saves me a couple of steps and makes the rebooting process acceptable. -- Mac OS X Hints.
This week Macsimum News offering part three of their four-part look at GIS (geographic information system) software for the Mac OS. Part one can be found here and part two here.
Apple patent is for head mounted display system
Several Apple patents patents for a head mounted display system have appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Patent number 20080088936 is for a head mounted display system that includes a remote laser light engine that generates laser light associated with a display signal.
Apple patent is for multi-functional handheld device
An Apple patent (number 20080088602) for a multi-function handheld device has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. According to Apple the patent involves a multi-functional hand-held device capable of configuring user inputs based on how the device is to be used.
Apple patents involve digital audio processing, image processing, stereo windowing
Apple patents for digital audio processing, image processing, stereo windowing and more have appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office.
Apple patents involve input devices, gimbaled scroll wheels
Several Apple patents involving user input devices and gimbaled scroll wheels have appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office
Apple patents regard online store features
Two Apple patents involving online store features have have appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. Patent number 20080091549 is for user supplied and refined tags.
Apple Inc. Wednesday patched four flaws in its Safari browser, including the critical vulnerability used by a researcher last month to hack a MacBook Air and claim a $10,000 check at the "Pwn 2 Own" contest. -- Computerworld.
Currently the set of images you can use from CSS consists of the following:
Bitmap Images (PNG, GIF, JPG)
SVG Images
Gradients
A notable missing ability when compared with explicit DOM content is programmatic drawing into CSS images. The <canvas> element represents a foreground bitmap image that can be drawn into programmatically, but - aside from inefficient hacks involving toDataURL - there hasn't been any way to draw into the image buffers used by CSS images. Until now! -- Surfin' Safari.
PowerPoint vs. Keynote
We asked Franklin N. Tessler--our go-to expert on presentation programs--to use PowerPoint 2008 and Keynote '08 to create the same project, progressing from the basics (data entry and formatting) to more-advanced features.
Excel vs. Numbers
We asked Rob Griffiths--our go-to expert on spreadsheets--to use Excel 2008 and Numbers '08 to create the same project, progressing from the basics (text entry and formatting) to more-advanced features. Our questions: Which program is better at each stage of the job?
Word 2008 vs. Pages '08
Which word processor is really right for you: Word 2008 or Pages '08? Jeffrey Battersby puts them in the ring and lets them duke it out.
In the past I've used Keynote for all my presentations, but as you may have read from previous posts, I'm really digging Aperture as a presentation tool. I'm visiting a bunch of Photography Schools across the country on the Aperture Campus Education Tour, and I'm getting to show off my work and the program at the same time. It's Aperture's secret weapon, and many of the faculty that see Aperture in action this way get excited, realizing there are great ways to use it for as a teaching tool for their students. -- O'Reilly Digital Media.
Safari 3.1.1 is recommended for all Safari users and includes improvements to stability, compatibility and security.
Long-time Microsoft Windows supporter IBM has recently initiated an internal pilot program to study the possibility of moving a significant number of its employees to Apple's Mac platform, leaked company documents show. -- AppleInsider.
Preview, says Bob Levitus has "always been a gem. But in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, it's turned into a real powerhouse with many new and useful features." For example, Preview's "Mark Up icon provides a drop-down menu with highlighting, strike-through and underlining tools, all fantastic for editing text. " And, Levitus points out, you'll find tools for annotating PDFs, reordering pages in a PDF, and several other new and highly useful features. -- The Houston Chronicle.
The phrase "security through obscurity" gets tossed around from time to time when discussing Mac OS X. The theory is that since Macs still represent a fraction of the available computers on the internet, there's less of an incentive for virus writers, malware authors, spambot harvesters, Comcast sales reps, and other purveyors of electronic evil to harass and attack the platform. Why target 5 percent of the population when you can get much better results by going after Windows?
But the truth is that security through obscurity is a flawed idea. Yes, there are fewer recorded attacks on the Mac platform, but by no means does that make it secure. So what's a Mac user to do? Like the book says, don't panic. In this article we'll take a look at some basic ways you can improve your Mac's security right out of the box. -- Ars Technica.
And don't forget these documents:
Both Gartner and IDC report shipments of Apple's Mac far outpaced its rivals in the U.S. market during the first quarter, as Apple continues to gain market share. -- c|net.
Those waxing nostalgic for Apple's Newton can take comfort in a new unofficial third-party application for the iPhone that can recognize handwriting (fingerwriting?) and turn it into typed text. -- iPhone Atlas.
Apple is one of the winners of this year's red dot awards, given to the designers of a number of products from around the world. Some 50 awards were given out this year, from a pool of 3,203 submissions submitted by 1,253 companies; Apple secured two awards, for the iMac in the computer category, and the iPhone as best mobile device. Apple has also received red dot quality markings for several other products, namely the iPod touch and nano, the iPhone's Bluetooth headset, and both the cabled and wireless aluminum keyboards.
MacNN has posted a review of Piano Wizard, a game that approaches learning to tickle the ivory in an innovative way. Piano Wizard makes whiling away the hours feels less like torture and more like gaming fun. Although the software is aimed at children, adults can certainly learn to play the piano with it too.
Put your graphical user interface to this test: Adjust the contrast on your display until the screen is completely black. Now, perform basic e-mail, word processing and Web-browsing tasks. What? Having a problem? Welcome to the world of the 1.3 million Americans who are blind. -- Computerworld.
Songwriting is a very personal thing. If you talk to 100 songwriters, you'll probably get 100 different methods that they use for conjuring up songs. As for me, I learned very early on that I'm not particularly good at writing lyrics, but I can write catchy riffs that grab peoples attention, so that's what I focus on.
Figuring out my songwriting strengths lifted a huge weight off me. I had this preconception that if I was going to write a song, I had to write the entire song, including music and lyrics. But that's just not the case. Focus on what you are good at, and do that. -- Macworld.
Are you planning to develop software for the iPhone? If you want to develop Free Software, has a good reviewLinux.com of the conflicts between Apple's Registered iPhone Developer Agreement and licenses like the GPL. This is important for people who may not read all the agreements they click Agree to.
In Mac OS X Leopard, Dictionary has evolved into an even more valuable resource, letting you not only quickly search the built-in Dictionary, Thesaurus, and Apple Dictionary on your Mac but also search Wikipedia, the expansive online encyclopedia. There's more. You can now access the Dictionary from Mail, Safari, iWork, and most other Mac OS X applications. -- Apple Quick Tip of the Week.
Taking it beyond personal taste, Popular Mechanics crunches the numbers--with some surprising results (and detailed benchmark scores.) -- Popular Mechanics.
If you'd like to move your collection of RSS feeds into 10.5's Mail, here's how. -- Mac OS X Hints.
Apple patent reflects unreleased (so far) iPod or iPhone design
Apple has been granted a patent (number D566706) for the ornamental design for a handheld portable computing device. It seems to reflect an unreleased--at least so far--iPod or iPhone design.
Apple granted patent for mouse with optically-based scrolling feature
Apple has been granted a patent (number 7358963) for a mouse featuring an optically-based scrolling feature by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. It relates generally to an input device for use in a computer system. More particularly, the present invention relates to a mouse having an optically-based scrolling feature.
Apple patents involve digital-to-analog converter, special processing
Apple has been granted patents by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office for methods and systems for implementing a digital-to-analog converter and special processing upon an occurrence of an exceptional situation during the course of a computation.
On Sunday, I encountered a break-in on an Xserve running OS X Leopard Server 10.5.2. All Apple-issued fixes had been applied. I cannot locate the vector of intrusion, but following the break-in I noticed the following. -- InfoWorld.
One of the major downsides to having a Mac (yes, they do exist) is that they can be quite the theft magnets. This has led many people to get theft insurance and programs like Obicule's Undercover to protect their precious investment. But, it turns out you may not even need all of that as long as you have OS X Leopard and .Mac. -- MacUSER.
You don't have to spend a lot of money to build a useful Mac software library. Here's a list of some of Todd Ogasawara's favorite freeware and Open Source software for the Mac. -- O'Reilly Digital Media.
Having seen Google set up their Google Analytics product for free (in an attempt to get everyone to spend more money on adwords) and then seen Microsoft release their version of a free web analytics tool into beta, Yahoo have decided to do the same thing, by buying someone else and releasing it into the wild for free. Great news for bloggers who don't want to sign up for Google's 'evil' plans.
New software can modify the individual notes of a recorded chord. -- MIT Technology Review.
Apple is investigating problems with its new Penryn-based Intel notebooks that cause flickering and graphics corruption during media playback and web browsing. -- AppleInsider.
Apple last night quietly launched firmware version 2.0.2 for its Apple TV media hub. The update, available through the device's built-in update utility, isn't accompanied by release documentation but is currently believed to offer bug fixes that may address network reliability using 802.11n wireless.
Apple's Safari, Mozilla's Firefox 3, and Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 duke it out to be the program you use most on your PC. -- PCWorld.
Apple seems to have carefully constructed a persona that aligns it with left-thinking, socially liberal types. Yet it's a major corporation that has to be as concerned as any with its bottom line. Is Apple an urban liberal or a suburban conservative? Is it trying to be everything to all people? Or just catering to those who can afford to buy its pricey wares? -- MacNewsWorld.
WebKit now supports gradients specified in CSS. There are two types of gradients: linear gradients and radial gradients. -- Surfin' Safari.
Microsoft's release of protocol documentation for Exchange brings the possibility of a true alternative to Outlook for businesses using Linux and Macs one step closer. -- APC Magazine.
While great industrial design--whether it's for great cars or great buildings--always attracts gawkers, it's software that makes Apple's (nasdaq: AAPL - news - people ) proliferating array of machines so comfortable to use on a long-term basis. Apple's best products mix the curb appeal of a Lamborghini with easy-to-drive friendliness of a Honda Accord. -- Forbes.
Abilene Christian University has adopted Google Apps and will pair them with free iPhones for students and faculty next fall. -- eWeek.
There comes a time in a young man's life when his thoughts turn to flights of fancy. And when I say flights of fancy, I actually mean a new gadget. And when I say new gadget, I actually mean a new computer. -- William Mize.
A new form of digital storage technology under development at IBM could deliver more than tenfold increases in both the storage capacity and battery life of handheld gadgets like Apple's iPod and iPhone, according to the company's claims. -- AppleInsider.
Buzz about the 3G iPhone has been increasing at an alarming rate, which could only mean one thing: it is coming. Here, we try to parse what we know for sure and what we don't. -- Ars Technica.
Microsoft's Mac BU must have been paying attention last week when news spread that its Remote Desktop Connection beta 2 had expired (even though it technically kept working). The company released Microsoft Remote Desktop Connection Client for Mac 2 (Beta 3) yesterday (thanks to our own forum people for pointing it out!). This 7.7MB download now has no expiration date--no more will you have to put up with RDC harassing you to download a new version, ever. -- Ars Technica.
When it comes to smart phone preferences, there are clear differences between the sexes, say market researchers and usability testers. And these differences have implications for the success the devices. -- PCWorld.
The incremental improvements to Mac OS X, virtualization and the iPhone SDK show that Apple is positioning itself to challenge Microsoft for computing dominance, according to BusinessWeek on Friday. In contrast, Microsoft has clung to a bloated OS that has saddled Vista users with an average computer.
Apple added a new Get a Mac commercial to its Web site on Friday that features John Hodgman and Justin Long in their familiar rolls as PC and Mac. Office Stress touts Office 2008 for the Mac's cross-platform compatibility with Microsoft Office for Windows.
Late last month, Cisco's WebEx division announced expanded Mac OS X support across its suite of business process collaboration applications, saying that Mac use has doubled in the last year. The online collaboration services--including WebEx Meeting Center, WebEx WebOffice, WebEx Event Center, WebEx Training Center, WebEx Sales Center and WebEx Support Center -- now offer cross-platform support for Mac OS X Leopard and Safari 3, as part of Cisco WebEx's ongoing attention to multi-platform support and its growing customer base of Mac users.
Xserve line is competitive with mainstream alternatives. So should SMEs add Apple to their server shopping lists? Info-Tech thinks so; however, there are some caveats buyers need to consider before making the switch. -- Processor.
OS X is a great OS for "newcomers" and "power users" alike. Almost inevitably it's OS X's user-friendliness that (deservedly) gets most the attention - printers just work, BSOD-style crashes are (almost) unheard of and drivers are such a non-issue, they're practically invisible (they either just work, or they don't). But instead of focusing on the good, today we'll be taking a look at the bad and (shock!) ugly areas of OS X that confuse far too many switchers. -- Jetplane Journal.
Life Record on Friday announced the release of Life Record EMR version 4.0, a new version of its Electronic Medical Record (EMR) software. Life Record offers doctors a system for managing their practice on the computer. The software's features include in-lobby enrollment, iPhone messaging, the ability to prescribe drugs electronically, real-time patient updates, access to patient medical records, imaging capabilities with support for multi-dimensional DICOM images and more.
A professor has developed computer algorithms that collect publicly available information on a given subject, turn them into books, printed on demand or delivered digitally. -- New York Times.
In the process of developing Aperture Assistant, I've been quite a lot of time delving around inside Aperture's SQLite3 database file. Initially, this was an extremely daunting prospect as my only formal programming training comes from some Basic and LOGO a couple of decades ago at school, but by starting slowly and reading around on the net I started getting somewhere. -- O'Reilly Digital Media.
Curious about how advanced hobbyist-level home automation is accomplished? Two brief and well-written articles give you a peek into the types of things you can accomplish by combining logic and Macintosh know-how. -- O'Reilly Digital Media.
How Tonya upgraded over 10 years of email from Eudora to Apple Mail, but not without mistakes and troubles, and what she learned along the way. -- TidBITS.
Pro Applications Update 2008-01 improves reliability for Apple's professional applications and is recommended for all users of Final Cut Studio, Final Cut Server, Logic Studio, and Shake.
The MacBook Air Bluetooth Firmware Update 1.0 should be installed on all MacBook Air Systems.
While this year's WWDC is still 63 days away, that might be too long to wait for an official announcement of Apple's next-gen iPhone. If you're one of those unfortunate, impatient souls, then recent rumors may help satiate the burning desire for details... at least for now. -- Ars Technica.
At a Gartner sponsored conference in Las Vegas, two Gartner analysts described Windows as untenable and collapsing. They also said that Microsoft must make radical changes. -- The Mac Observer.
This week Macsimum News is offering part two of their look at GIS (geographic information system) software for the Mac OS. Part one can be found here.
Apple patent involves audio processing for improved user experience
An Apple patent (number 20080084981) for audio processing for an improved user experience has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. The invention relates to electronic devices and, more particularly, to enhanced audio processing for electronic devices.
Apple patent is for transfer and synchronization of media data
An Apple patent (number 20080086494) for the transfer and synchronization of media data has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. The invention relates to media devices and, more particularly, to synchronization or management of media on media devices.
Jobs, Ive among co-inventors on Apple patent for invisible, light-transmissive display system
Apple CEO Steve Jobs and design guru Jonathan P. Ive are among the inventors listed on an Apple patent (number 20080084404) for an invisible, light-transmissive display system. The invention relates generally to device display systems, and more particularly to invisible, light-transmissive display systems that become visible when illuminated from behind.
Taking control of a computer through flaws in the operating system is a thing of the past, according to Mike Romo, product manager for Symantec's Mac product line. "Trojan horses and viruses are yesterday's news," he said. Today it's about using the browser as the entry point into the system or hacking Web sites. -- Builder AU.
Some people are finding that Spotlight, OS X's search engine, does not seem to be able to find every thing it should. Even when it is there. Even rebuilding the Spotlight database does not help. Well MacInTouch reader James Buchanan found a work-around:
I have the a pattern of being able to look at a file in a folder, but Spotlight cannot not find it by filename, even after rebuilding the Spotlight database.
What I did find is that opening the file and then closing it the file then appears in Spotlight. Also by renaming the file it will appear to Spotlight. Also I recently migrated my info from a G4 to a Mac Pro, and it seems that the files which Spotlight is missing are those created before Leopard - new ones do not have this problem.
So I used a batch file renaming utility called NameMangler and first tried changing the file names in a folder that had roughly 100 files, then returned them to their former state. After doing so they appear to Spotlight. I then made sure my mirror backup was up to date, and I then did this procedure to my entire documents folder (approx 8300 files). Doing spot checks I haven't found a file that is still not visible to Spotlight.
Another file utility EasyFind can locate files that Spotlight misses, but I prefer Spotlight if only it were less bug prone. I like using HoudaSpot for a useful front end to Spotlight, and Leaf as an alternative to the Finder for viewing, finding files. Both these are dependent on Spotlight.
Still this is a cumbersome workaround, and although I hope it will "solve" the problem, it is a shame to have to do this at all.
Ah the promise of running Parallels on mac was so tempting. I'd be able to run all my Open University course software without any hassles, mark eTMA's in the native environment, and not have to worry about partitioning my precious hard disk space.
Well, the first trials on my MacBook have not been too promising. This posting is a list of 'to do' before you consider the Parallels route. I do have to say that now it's all up and running I am very happy with the environment, but it's not been without it's growing pains. -- Two cultures, one mind.
A discussion about RAID, RAID software and backups. Yes even if you have a RAID you need to do backups. -- MacInTouch.
With Mac market share growing at an admirable rate, the number of new PC-to-Mac converts grows and grows. But once a PC user is Saved, he's faced with some tough challenges, not the least of which is transferring his iTunes library -- playlists and all -- from his clunky beige box to his new hot hardware. -- MacUser.
When it comes to portable computing, the iPhone works in that it gets the job done. Its screen is barely big enough to read comfortably. Its onscreen keyboard will never match up fully to the needs of a trained typist accustomed to physical data entry. It's a gadget made from compromise and limitations. But where it excels is in bridging the gap. If you're serious about reading ebooks, managing your calendar, watching videos, and performing other acts of portable computing, surely a laptop will better suit your needs. But the iPhone offers just enough computing to allow you to untether yourself from a normal laptop and strike out with the Internet in your pocket. -- O'Reilly Digital Media.
Apple automation guru, Sal Soghoian talks about the scriptability of Aperture in this podcast interview with Derrick Story. Sal points to the "Aperture-InDesign Integration Demo" as a powerful example of how AppleScript can extend Aperture's capabilities. -- O'Reilly Digital Media.
The "Hello Dear" event in Jeff Carlson's iCal calendar wasn't a sweet message from his wife - it was spam automatically added thanks to a setting in Mail that automatically (and invisibly) creates iCal events from .ics file attachments. -- TidBITS.
MacGuru A.J. has provided us with an addition to our Good Eats section (The Best Local Places to Eat in East Tennessee.)
Northshore Brasserie - 9430 S. Northshore Drive. Belgian cuisine and seafood. Casual atmosphere, incredible food, enthusiastic service. Excellent wine list with half-price bottles on Tuesdays. Estimate $40-$80 per person, depending on drinks.
At the end of March, three networks added content to the iTunes Store, and yesterday, the New York Public Library began offering content through iTunes U.
Everyone loves new content, but the NYPL has the additional distinction of being free. The Library has been offering a variety of digital content as part of its NYPL Labs project, and now the Library is trying to bring the content to an even wider audience by offering it in podcast format on the iTunes Store. A number of NYPL public programs are on offer, including "LIVE from the NYPL," a "conversation, debate, performance" event covering a wide range of topics.
Also included are a few podcasts related to small businesses, some children's and performing arts content, as well as a number of NYPL digital collections. All of the NYPL content on iTunes U is organized by program and subject area, so it should be pretty easy to find things that are up your alley. The amount of content offered is a bit slender right now, but the NYPL is off to a great start, and I have no doubt that more content will be added over time as part of the Library's ongoing digitization efforts.
The Finder's View » Show View Options window only allows for fonts up to 16 points, when in theory you can use any font size you want. For me, changing the size to 18 points makes it that much easier on my eyes, and leads to fewer times when I'll have to use Universal Access. -- Mac OS X Hints.
Test Gear 1.1 provides motion graphics artists and video editors with a variety of test instruments to make objective measurements of their visual and audio work, all from within Adobe After Effects 6.x and 7.0.
How real audio is turned into digital information and then turned back into real sound. And how it all works with Garageband. -- Macsimum News.
One day, Apple found itself at the very top of the digital music space, with more customers on the Windows side than on the Mac. iTunes, in fact, recently became the number one music retailer in the U.S., ahead of even Wal-Mart and Amazon. -- The Mac Night Owl.
Opinion - The upcoming iPhone 2.0 software is just around the corner and we all may be surprised how Apple's unified communication solution could merge mobile communication with VoIP, PCs, Macs, iPhones and even Apple TVs. We took a hard, long look at the information that is available right now from reports as well as patent filings to give you an outlook what Apple might be up to, why we are quite certain that VoIP and videoconferencing will be the iPhone's new killer applications. -- TG Daily.
Some customers are using the device to make transactions, so why can't internal associates use it? -- Computerworld.
The reason I'm off on this hype, is due to an article I just read. I came across a Twitter post by Duncan Riley, posting a link to Preston Galla's "Five reasons Vista beats OS X". I thought: "Wow!" Maybe he knows something I don't. I was sadly disappointed, however. These aren't reasons, they don't even come close. Yet it's being spread as "fact." I would love it if someone would give me five valid reasons that Vista is good. Here are his reasons (and my responses): -- The Chris Pirillo Show.
Deb called up, all hush-hush and serious on the phone: she said, 'Danny, I need to talk to you about something important, I'm thinking of making a huge change to my life', and I said, 'Oh have you also noticed that Pascal's marshmallows have too many pink ones and you're thinking of changing to Candy Lane with the higher white count?', and she said, 'No, it's way more important than that. I'm actually thinking about converting to your faith'. I said, 'Oh, wow Deb, that is big, are you sure about this?', and she said, 'Yes I am. I've always been a devout PC follower, but now I'm thinking of converting ... to Mac'. -- Melbourne Age.
MacBook Air EFI Firmware Update 1.0 fixes several issues to improve the stability of MacBook Air computers.
Firmware Restoration CD 1.6 is used to restore the firmware of Intel-based Macintosh computers.
MacBook EFI Firmware Update 1.2 fixes several issues to improve the stability of MacBook computers.
MacBook Pro EFI Firmware Update 1.5 fixes several issues to improve the stability of MacBook Pro computers.
iMac EFI Firmware Update 1.3 fixes several issues to improve the stability of iMac computers.
Aluminum Keyboard Firmware Update 1.0 addresses an issue with the aluminum Apple Keyboard and the aluminum Apple Wireless Keyboard where a key may repeat unexpectedly while typing.
Being the owner of a lot of different types of computers, I tend to order a lot of memory online. Okay, I also tend to scrounge it from dead or dying machines, but that's not the point. The point is that I've long found Crucial's memory adviser tool to be useful in determining what kind of RAM I need, even if I don't necessarily buy it from Crucial. -- Ars Technica.
The days of worms and viruses that targeted a specific operating system are as dated as The Spice Girls, as security threats move online to target the browser and phishing scams. -- c|net.
The Wall Street Journal's Walt Mossberg would like you to know that he has no clue when the 3G iPhone is coming, and no, he can't get you one. -- c|net.
Even in the day and age of the iPhone, the Newton community is still updating software for the old brick. -- .
At some time in your life and that time may be soon, you will need to use javascript to interact with webservices. This tutorial gives a good primer. -- Kirk Allen Evans's Blog.
Bob "Dr. Mac" LeVitus has TMO's Feature Review for Office 2008, a review written after spending months with the software in order to write Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac For Dummies. That means he's got the lowdown for you!
One of the major drawbacks to working on an Apple Mac in a large corporate company is that most IT departments still use Microsoft Exchange Server for email and calendar support. While we've found many a workaround to get email up and running using Apple Mail there remains this irritating bug that prevents Exchange iCal events from syncing correctly with Apple iCal. I've resorted to creating my own bug fix, which I've detailed (with screenshots.) -- Mac OS X Hints.
There are several reports in the Apple Discussion Forums that the Chess game that comes with OS X is failing under Leopard (10.5.) There is no fix given and nothing from Apple. I know this is not "mission critical" but a friend pointed it out to me and asked me about it (I don't run this game.) If you have any information/insight please share it. My searches so far have not found a solution.
Apple patents involving content distribution, visual effects, and computing visual regions have appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. -- Macsimum News.
Four experts defend their chosen operating systems in an opinionated free-for-all. -- Computerworld.
One of the first events to follow the debut of the Apple (AAPL) 3G iPhone, whenever that happens, will be the ritual ripping apart of the device by various analysts to figure out who is making the guts of the thing. Since no one had a 3G iPhone yet - heck, Apple has not even officially said there will be one - it would be a challenge to do a tear down just yet. But Craig Berger, of Friedman, Billings Ramsey, today took up the challenge. -- Barron's.
Although the concept of editing an image stored in Aperture with an external editor has been around since version 1, I've received a few questions lately on the topic and want to take some time to review working with your files in other editing tools. -- O'Reilly Digital Media.
A little while ago I wrote an article about my experience using esession.com, a web-based "virtual recording studio". Esession struck me as having a very well-integrated collection of professional features. Now comes esession.com Version 2, and it looks like it's going to be better - largely by incorporating more non-professional features. -- O'Reilly Digital Media.
Apple Inc.'s existing MacBook and MacBook Pro notebooks will be the last of their breed, as both product families are destined for major design changes upon their next refresh, AppleInsider has learned. -- AppleInsider.
Okay, the Time Machine/AirPort Extreme situation is now officially ridiculous. TidBITS's Glenn Fleishmann is reporting that Apple's confirmed to him that the Extreme is unsupported for use with Time Machine, even though the latest batch of updates enable AirPort Disks to show up in the Time Machine disk-selection box.
Due to recent request regarding Migrating from Windows to OS X I have updated MacVolPlace's Mac OS X page with additional links that I hope are useful. If you have found some web resources of use that are not on the page please share them.
Adobe released Acrobat 8.1.2 Professional update for Mac OS X 10.4.3 and up. According to the release notes improvements in Acrobat 8.1.2 Professional include the following:
When Apple CEO Steve Jobs announced that the iPhone was ready for enterprise use, the announcement caused a stir that few of the world's iconic businessmen could match. It seemed that everyone from rank-and-file worker-bees to CEOs wanted to get their corporate applications served up on the hot new device. Why? This was Apple-a synonym for awe-inspiring design and coolness-the antithesis to stodgy old corporate technology that burns the eyes red and freezes computers blue.
But some Apple-watchers and evangelist IT practitioners who use Macs for business think the announcement runs deeper than the iPhone itself in its importance. Some believe it could usher in the era of a more enterprise-friendly Apple. -- New Zealand Reseller News.
With racks of servers already crowded with products from HP, Dell, IBM, and others and running platforms ranging from Unix to Linux to Windows Server, it is natural to ask where the Apple Xserve fits into the picture.
But the appeal of Apple products has always been the synthesis of software and hardware as a bundle, whereas the PC represents a mashup of hardware and software from different vendors. -- IT Management.
Have you ever been away from your Mac and wanted to shut down, restart, or needed to open an application remotely, but didn't have access to anything except your iPhone? Well, I am going to show you how to do these tasks with AppleScript and Mail. -- The Unofficial Apple Weblog.
I wanted to share with you how I shorten my URLs because I just recently learned about it. Perhaps I am a little slow on the uptake, but I am okay with that. -- The Apple Blog.
When I discovered Nicecast last year, I began enjoying my own radio station at work with news and New Music Tuesdays continuously. While debugging a modification to the original AppleScript which would also use the AppleScript say command to announce the time, I accidentally discovered that the time would announce via Nicecast, given activation of iTunes. -- Mac OS X Hints.
We never imagined the iPod Touch was this intuitive. -- Wall Street Journal.
When I started this blog two months ago I began recording my initial thoughts on obtaining a Mac. While I am not a card carrying Mac fanboy (it does have issues like any piece of technology), I wanted to try and summarize why I like the Mac so much now that I've been using it heavily for the last two months. -- David Alison's Blog.
Intel keeps everyone well informed about its processor plans. Rik Myslewski looks at some recent chip announcements from Apple's sole processor supplier and how they might affect the Mac market. -- Macworld.
Today Apple began shipping Final Cut Server. Final Cut Server catalogs media and generates thumbnails to enable viewing annotation and approval of content from anywhere using a Mac or a PC.
According to Apple, Final Cut Server has broad search capabilities, which extend from simple keywords to complex combinations of IPTC, XMP and XML metadata. The application also configures a range of specific access controls that define user permissions on an asset or project basis.
Final Cut Server is a scalable server application, so it supports many different sized workgroups. Of course, Final Cut Server is tightly integrated with Apple's Final Cut Studio. The server tool also includes Compressor 3, Apple's industrial strength digital encoding and compression tool.
Final Cut Server is available immediately for $999 for one server and 10 concurrent client licenses, and $1,999 for one server and unlimited client licenses.
The pricing for education institutions is significantly different - $299 for the 10-license package and $599 for the unlimited package.
Speaking at a Beet.tv executive summit, well-known Wall Street Journal writer Walt Mossberg has stirred the pot by stating that an iPhone with 3G access will be available within 60 days. -- AppleInsider.
Time Capsule expands the wireless base station into a file and printer sharing solution and Time Machine target. This segment, the last of six exploring Time Capsule in depth, provides a review of its features and limitations as a wireless file sharing and backup appliance, along with comparisons to alternative products and previous AirPort models. -- AppleInsider.
Apple made it easy to snip the wires on Time Machine backups with the Time Capsule and even AirPort Extreme base stations. For owners who need to backup an on-the-go notebook or more than one Mac in a household, a central device that (mostly) "just works" is a solid enabler for finally developing a habit for backing up.
While Time Machine is pretty easy to get started with, there are a number of caveats to be aware of. Whether you're sporting a new wireless setup or you're finally about to plug in that USB backup drive, we have a few tips and gotchas to help you get the most out of Time Machine. -- Ars Technica.
The Apple MacBook Air is a seminal computer. There I said it. I'm not going to pretend that my opinion is the final word (or anything close to it) but I will weigh in by saying it's a ground-breaking product. After using it for about two months, here's why. -- c|net.
What is truly impossible? To accompany Michio Kaku's article on the physics of impossibility, 10 things have been rounded up that were once thought scientifically impossible. Some were disproved centuries ago but others have only recently begun to enter the realm of possibility. -- New Scientist Technology.
Leopard's Time Machine is a huge step forward in backup for the average Joe (or Jane). However, one problem is that applications can tell the system to not back up certain files. This is intended to avoid backing up working files, cache files, and such that don't generally need to be backed up. However, we know that VMware, at least, is using the mechanism to quiet exclude virtual machines from being backed up, and others could come. While this makes sense in some ways, it could easily lead to a disaster for those who aren't aware of it happening. So, with that background, I played around for a few minutes and I figured out how this flag is stored. -- Mac OS X Hints.
MacFixIt has a detailed Time Capsule Review, complete with performance benchmarks and "best practices" tips.
MacSpeech has announced that MacSpeech Dictate is now available for purchase directly from the company's website. In addition, potential customers can choose from a variety of specialized microphones, including desktop mounted ones or wireless versions. When purchased inside the United States, MacSpeech Dictate starts at $200 when purchased with a basic USB headset, while users can opt to pay $30 to $150 for a microphone more suitable to their needs.
After a few weeks in the arms of Firefox 3 betas, I've returned to Safari as my daily browser. Unsurprisingly, it's the interface that drove me back. -- Daring Fireball.
When my wireless router started faltering with alarming regularity in the past month, I realized the little device had probably reached the end of its life cycle. The Netgear router has been pretty much running 24/7 over the past two years, and while routers typically last much longer than that, everyone's mileage varies. Therefore, instead of shopping around for an alternative el-cheapo router that would get the job of letting all of my wireless-capable devices talk over the internet done, I decided to take this opportunity to upgrade all the way up - to an Apple Time Capsule. -- ctrl.alt(ered).mind.
I absolutely love wikis, so when Apple introduced Mac OS X Server 10.5 "Leopard," one of the new features I was really excited about was "WikiServer" (what the Apple marketing department calls "Teams.") -- Ups and Downs and Everything In Between.
As most of you know, last Tuesday morning saw the arrival of my Apple refurbished 17" MacBook Pro 2.4Ghz with high-res glossy screen. So straight out of the box, I'm going to show you how I double the storage space of the MBP with minimal cost. After the jump, I'll cover the MacBook Pro strip-down, where to get cheap replacement hard drives, and how to clone your existing Mac hard drive (and Windows Boot Camp partitions) onto your new one. -- theory.isthereason.
S. Mark Williams, Ph.D., founder and CEO of Modality, Inc., has been named one of ten Apple Science Innovators for 2008. This is the first year Apple has recognized in this way individuals demonstrating excellence in the integration of new technology in research and education. Williams was named an Apple Science Innovator for his work using Apple tools and products in his medical teaching, including the creation of brain anatomy study guides for the iPod. -- PR.com.
Mac OS X 10.5 includes a number of changes to its Unix core, perhaps more than in any prior OS X release. Many of the changes are routine--updated versions of key Unix programs such as the bash shell (from 2.0.5b to 3.2), the vi text editor (from version 6.2 to 7.0), and even the man manual page reader (from 1.5o1 to 1.6c). Most of these alterations, however, will be invisible to the casual Terminal user--though the new versions may contain some additional features, the programs will still work as they did before.
More interesting are the totally new (or substantially revised) Unix commands in 10.5. Here are my picks for the five most interesting and useful ones. -- Macworld.
Conventional lithium-ion batteries in laptops and cell phones quickly lose their ability to store energy and can catch fire if they're overcharged or damaged. Now researchers at Argonne National Laboratory in Argonne, IL, have developed composite battery materials that can make such batteries both safer and longer lived, while increasing their capacity to store energy by 30 percent. -- MIT Technology Review.
AirPort Admin Utility for Graphite and Snow 4.2.5 for Mac OS X 10.4 or later software supports the original Apple AirPort Graphite and Snow (Dual Ethernet) Base Stations.
Keynote 4.0.3 addresses performance and stability issues when working with large documents.
From the advanced sync options in .Mac to data detectors in Mail to the ability to save Spotlight searches in the Finder sidebar, Ryan Faas describes 25 of the "little-known but highly useful features" in Mac OS X Leopard. "These 'hidden' features may be things you never heard of or noticed," he says, "but they're too good to miss." -- ComputerWorld.
The iPhone DevTeam has released the PwnageTool. The PwnageTool allows a user to install unsigned apps developed with the official iPhone SDK, or just about anything else you can think of. This has broad implications for installing heavily modified versions of the iPhone OS, unsigned third-party applications, or possibly a different OS entirely (said to be in the works). -- Ars Technica.
John Gruber, writes in Daring Fireball, about Adobe CS4 and the fact that while it will be 64bit on Windows it will only be 32Bit on the Mac. He writes a thoughtful analysis on the topic, pointing out that lack of Carbon support in Leopard is making it difficult for Adobe (as well as some other cross platform vendors) to develop applications for both Windows and the Mac using the same code base.
There are some simple troubleshooting steps you should try if your MacBook Air won't turn on. Use these steps if:
If you have an issue with connecting your wireless network to Apple TV, there's usually a quick and simple solution you can try. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
Preview is a powerful application that can do many things. One of the new features introduced in Leopard is the ability of Preview to merge several files of different types into one, say, PDF document. -- The Mac Observer.
On Wednesday evening, Apple posted the schedule for the sessions and labs for the 2008 Worldwide Developers Conference. There are three main tracks: iPhone, Mac and IT.
In this week's Macsimum Migration Kit, we're offering part one of our look at GIS (geographic information system) software for the Mac.
Apple patent involves episodic games and how users interact with them
An Apple patent (number 20080082406) for the treatment of episodic games responsive to user game playing activity has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. The invention relates to digital game assets and, more particularly, to treatment (such as marketing) of episodic digital game assets from an on-line media store responsive to user game playing activity.
Apple patent is for soft keyboard display for portable multifunction device
An Apple patent (number 20080082934) for a soft keyboard display for a portable multifunction device has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. It relates generally to the soft keyboard on the iPhone (and perhaps upcoming Apple devices.)
Apple patent involves iPhone, iPod touch widgets
An Apple patent (number 20080082930) for a portable multifunction device, method and graphical user interface for configuring and displaying widgets has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. It involves portable electronic devices, and more particularly, to portable devices that include multiple widgets--in other words, the widgets on the iPhone and iPod touch.
Three Apple patents relate to Apple store
Apple has filed three patents at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office relating to its online store.
The geeky technology of virtualization is helping move Apple from the fringe to the center of the market for consumer PCs by giving Apple's desktop and laptop computers the ability to run Windows applications as if they were built for the Mac. It's a trick that has demolished a big objection to buying a Mac: that they can't run Windows software. -- Forbes.
My professional life flashed before my eyes today. -- Confessions of an insecure salesman.
What if Apple did create a PC-friendly version of its latest operating system? Could Leopard compete with Vista? -- IT Business Edge.
There's no other major item most of us own that is as confusing, unpredictable and unreliable as our personal computers. Everybody has questions about them, and we aim to help. -- AllThingsD: Mossberg's Mailbox.
The current Mac Pro may be the most customizable machine to ever come out of Cupertino. But what do each of those options add in terms of performance? Macworld Lab has configured a Mac Pro to test tweaks to memory, the hard drive, and the graphics card to figure out what effect each upgrade has on the Mac Pro's speed. -- Macworld.
There are more ways to develop applications for the Apple iPhone device than using the company's beta iPhone SDK. Through a combination of Microsoft and other technologies, developers can build a Web application for the iPhone, according to a speaker at the VSLive conference in San Francisco on Wednesday evening. Until Apple opens up the iPhone SDK business, his company will likely use alternate technologies to build apps. -- InfoWorld.
Michael Mace of Rubicon Consulting interviewed 460 iPhone users--0.01% of the installed base, all users in the US--and published the results in a white paper. Here's the more interesting bits Mace reported, with a look at how the tech media has worked to sensationalize some of his findings, particularly the unsurprising concept that most iPhone buyers are already familiar with Apple's products. -- Roughly Drafted Magazine.
Front Row 2.1.3 provides improved iTunes 7.6.2 compatibility.
QuickTime 7.4.5 includes fixes that enhance reliability, improve compatibility with third-party applications, and address security issues. This release is recommended for all QuickTime 7 users.
At the spring edition of its bi-annual Developer Forum, Intel has released the first Atom processors, some of which should reach Apple's ultra-mobile devices. The company has also provided first clues as to the future of the Centrino platform that will form the basis of next year's Macs. -- AppleInsider.
Time Capsule is billed as an ideal backup target for Time Machine. At the same time, networked drives (and particularly wireless shares) are often slower than a directly connected USB backup drive. This segment, the fifth of six exploring Time Capsule in depth, compares the pros and cons of using a solution like Time Capsule and the AirPort Extreme to perform Time Machine backups relative to using a directly attached hard drive. -- AppleInsider.
A recent consumer survey by ChangeWave offers more positive news about iPhone. According to tech columnist Jonny Evans, not only does iPhone receive "'an astonishing 79 percent Very Satisfied rating'" from owners, but data also indicates that "35 per cent of respondents who plan to buy a smartphone in the coming quarter already want to purchase an iPhone." In fact, 10% of them point to the SDK and new iPhone 2.0 software as the biggest reasons for their decision to go with iPhone. -- Macworld UK.
If you'd like to get your life a bit more organized, you should watch "Organize your work and life with your Mac." The free online seminar shows you how you can take advantage of the powerful tools in Mac OS X Leopard -- such as Mail, Address Book, and iCal -- Bento, the personal database designed just for Leopard users, and FileMaker Pro to get more control of the contacts, events, projects, and other elements of your busy life.
If you enjoy using Safari and RSS to keep you up to date on the latest Hot News articles or Apple Downloads, now you can receive those RSS feeds in your email inbox just minutes after new items post. That's because Mail in Mac OS X Leopard now supports RSS feeds. It even lets you set up Smart Mailboxes to keep them organized. -- Apple Quick Tip of the Week.
The state of the art in Mac OS POP 3 Email clients (from B to T). -- Applelinks.
Apple has become the number one music retailer in the US for the month of January, according to data collected by the NPD Group. Wal-Mart trailed Apple by 4 percentage points. -- Ars Technica.
Behind the scenes with Microsoft's coffee table. This is not a new post but good info and wroth a look if you have not seen much of "multi-touch."
The technology and costs are in place that Apple may still introduce an organic light-emitting diode (OLED) screen with an upcoming generation of the iPhone, according to an interview Electronista has conducted with Gartner analyst Ken Dulaney. While making it clear that claims of mass production of a 3G iPhone last week were not predictions but rather just "credible" numbers based on expectations, the researcher maintains that OLED is a realistic possibility for the iPhone's display due to power requirements for 3G radios, which almost always consume more energy than 2G radios
My object with this new column is to help all of you in your quest to enjoy the musical aspect of the world's greatest operating system. Not only is the Mac a fantastic tool for making music, it's also a whiz at capturing, routing and reshaping just about any audio that passes by.
There are a large number of cool applications out there that you'll find both handy and fun. My mission is to help in that discovery in any way that I can. Together we'll be exploring some of these free and not-so-free programs and hopefully we'll open up a new door for those of you who haven't yet taken the plunge into audio gladness.
We'll start by exploring the basics, Garageband. Why not? It's built-in to every new Mac and it totally ROCKS! I've had several friends compose really cool stuff in Garageband and I know many artists (like Steve Winwood) use it as a scratch pad of sorts around their studios. You'll be surprised what you can put together with this cool little application. -- Macsimum News.
Michael Mace at Rubicon Consulting, a small research firm based in Los Gatos, Calif., has done anybody interested in the iPhone two favors: 1) He published a first-rate piece of research on the impact of the device on its owners and Apple's competitors, and 2) He has made his results easily -- and freely -- available on the Web. -- Fortune.
On the surface, searching with Spotlight is pretty straightforward. In our previous installment, we covered the basics of using and customizing the Spotlight menu. But if your search involves multiple terms, or if you need to narrow down your results to dig up a particularly elusive file, knowing how to put together a good search query will pay off. -- Macworld.
Turns out Apple really does read crash reports, and takes them seriously enough to have a department whose only objective is to log, group, prioritize and resolve bug issues. -- MacUser.
Time Capsule, like most of Apple's earlier AirPort base stations, can handle both wired and wireless networked devices, but is optimized for serving wireless clients. This segment, the fourth of six exploring Time Capsule in depth, highlights the differences between wired and wireless networking on Time Capsule and the AirPort Extreme. -- AppleInsider.
External scripts can get in the way of loading web page elements in parallel for current browsers, but a WebKit fix increases page load speed by as much as 50 percent. -- Ars Technica.
Have you been suffering lately from a chronic lack of new iPhone ads? I knew you had been, and so did Apple. The company posted three new iPhone ads on its site this morning, all created in the same demonstrative style as its past iPhone ads.
And not to be out done, and to relieve the suffering of those of you who need a new "Get A Mac" ad, your wait is over. Here are two new "Get a Mac" ads:
Ajax is one of the more disruptive new Web technologies traveling across networks today. To help you minimize future surprises on your network, we've outlined the 10 things you should take to heart about Ajax. -- Network World.
Monday was not only April Fool's Day--it's also the anniversary of Apple's creation. In honor of Apple on the company's 32nd birthday, we are honoring a list of 32 of (what we consider to be) the most memorable products in the company's history. -- Ars Technica.
Based on comments from Redmond executives, Microsoft's vision for the next generation desktop seems to be losing focus compared to Apple, according to David Morgenstern at ZDNet on Tuesday.
I love my job. For the past month I've had the pleasure of using a MacBook Air along with a US$99 MacBook Air USB SuperDrive (more on that shortly) and a $29 USB Ethernet adapter. For starters, I used to hate it when technology writers called an electronic device "sexy." But I don't know any other way to describe MacBook Air. It is sexy: Sleek, smooth, curvy, and impossibly thin. -- The Mac Observer.
Some IT Departments are exasperated by the iPhone, according to the Wall Street Journal on Monday. They may hate the iPhone because they can't control it the way they want, but they are are also powerless to stop employees from using it.
Wolfram Research has announced the release of Mathematica Player Pro, the new delivery system for Mathematica applications and interactive documents. Player Pro gives access to any Mathematica-6-based notebook files to users who do not have the full version of the software, allowing performance of adaptive visualization, controlling interface elements, connecting to real-time data, and more. Developers can build applications in Mathematica and then use Player Pro to deploy them to anyone.
Times are tough financially, but Piper Jaffray Analyst Gene Munster said in a note to clients that Apple is in good shape to weather the rough economy with strong products and some revolutionary products in the pipelines in the months and years ahead. -- Macsimum News.
Apple patent is for electronic device with planar-like configuration
An Apple patent (number 7352567) for methods and apparatuses for docking a portable electronic device that has a planar-like configuration and that operates in multiple orientations has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. The invention relates generally to docking stations for portable electronic devices.
Apple patent involves digital signal processing operation
An Apple patent (number 7353143) for reviewing and changing the outcome of a digital signal processing operation has appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. The invention relates to digital signal processing, and more specifically, reviewing and changing the outcome of digital signal processing operations.
Patent filings hint at iTablet, new iPhone design
I'm said that I don't think Apple will ever produce a tablet-based Mac (an iTablet, if you will)--but I could be wrong. A recent Apple patent application suggests that the company is exploring ways to incorporate dual-multi-touch-screens in some of their upcoming devices "including an iPhone clam-shell model, the often-rumored tablet and laptops," according to a Future Music report.
Apple patents involve text-to-speech, laptop technologies, more
Several Apple patents have appeared at the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office. They involve text-to-speech, laptop technologies, more.
The iPhone gets the most press and the iPod sells in the largest quantities, but it's the Macintosh that really drives Apple's growth, says Gene Munster. -- Fortune.
There are few rifts as deep and as volatile as that between Mac and PC users. But with the ability to run both operating systems on the same machine now possible on the latest Intel-powered Macs, it's a division that is easily healed. -- Detroit Free Press.
According to the "Unavoidable Malware Myth," Microsoft's Windows security epidemic of viruses, spyware, and adware will be passed on to the next major computing platforms as an inevitable symptom of platform popularity. Were this to be true, it would be bad news for both Apple's Mac platform, which is growing several times faster than the PC average, and for the iPhone and iPod Touch, which appear to have an early lead as one of the most promising mobile platforms of the future. But malware isn't unavoidable. The myth is wrong, here's why. -- RoughlyDrafted Magazine.
A friend who recently switched to a Mac asked me what kind of virus software to get, since Macs are being attacked and hacked so easily these days.
Talk about misinformation. Yes, a Mac was attacked and compromised in a matter of minutes. It's not the end of the world. -- Mac 360.
Dell is the first manufacturer to offer a portable with a Blu-ray below US$1,000. So when will Apple release a similar product? Never, in my opinion. -- Macsimum News.
Explore the universe of products made for the Mac, iPhone, and iPod at the Macintosh Products Guide.
Productivity gains, compatibility issues drive a CTO (and Mac fan) to switch to Windows at his company. -- ComputerWorld.
Just days after settling a lawsuit in which it was charged with misrepresenting the quality of its notebook screens, Apple Inc. has been hit with a second class-action suit rife with similar allegations over one of its iMac displays. -- AppleInsider.
Earlier versions of the WiFi specification all used the 2.4GHz radio spectrum. The new 802.11n standard, supported in Time Capsule, the square AirPort Extreme, and recently shipping AirPort Express units, allows users to alternatively select the use of 5GHz channels. This segment, the third of six, compares the pros and cons of using this new section of frequencies, which can be both problematic and provide a major boost in speed. -- AppleInisder.
Everyone knows that their activities online are being tracked and used to create targeted advertising, but not everyone is okay with it. According to new survey results from TRUSTe, consumers want more control over how advertisers can use their information to present relevant ads. -- Ars Technica.
Intel and ST Microelectronics have come up with a way to put multiple bits of data in a single memory cell in phase change memory, a breakthrough that effectively doubles the technology's density. Numonyx, the memory joint venture between STMicroelectronics and Intel, is already shipping samples of phase change memory (PCM) chips to customers and will start shipping PCM chips commercially later this year, CEO Brian Harrison said at a press conference Monday. -- c|net.
Need to find an Apple Authorised Service Provider in your region? Use the following links to locate one near you. -- AppleCare Knowledge Base.
Elizabeth Cochran of the University of California at Riverside and Stanford seismologist Jesse Lawrence have made use of the sensors built into many new laptops that sense when the computer is being dropped, and turned them into earthquake monitors. They hope to sign up thousands of users to act like a grid of detectors that can sense an earthquake before it does too much damage. -- Wired.
After years of refusing to install extensions in my browsers or proxies on my machine, I have, for the past few months, started to work seriously on blocking connections to ad servers. The reason? The increasing number of security issues linked to these ad networks and their ability to inject code in relatively "trusted" web sites. -- O'Reilly Digital Media.
