Ultimate Apple

Filed under: Cult of Mac, iPhone

Where in the world are Apple’s missing 1.3 million iPhones? Iran? Holland? South Africa? Yes! Lots of other places too.

We asked for pics and you answered: iPhones from around the world, from countries where the iPhone isn’t even sold with service. Canada makes sense, as a quick trip across the border will land you an iPhone. China also makes sense, as it wouldn’t be Hong Kong without a gray market plethora of unlocked iPhones, would it? We got reports from almost every part of the globe, and put together a nice little gallery to show just how popular this gadget is — service or not. Where there’s a hack, there’s a way…

Permalink | Email this | Comments

More: continued here

The MacBook Air is so tiny that you’ll be tempted to just toss it into a portfolio, briefcase, backpack or whatever you happen to be carrying at the time–but I have to caution against this. With miniaturization come inevitable tradeoffs in durability and ruggedness. The MBA should never be mistaken for a Panasonic ToughBook and [...]

More: continued here

Filed under: iLife, Software Update

In the transition from iLife ‘06 to ‘08, one of the shifts in iPhoto functionality was the deprecation of photocasts in favor of .Mac web galleries. Sure, your friends and family can still subscribe to an RSS feed of your pictures (and what kind of loving grandparent doesn’t want a newsfeed full of Halloween costumes and messy-breakfast snapshots?), but despite the enhanced gallery views in ‘08, some key features didn’t roll forward — in particular, while ‘06 photocasts could include original size, full-res picture files for downloaders, ‘08 web galleries downsized and/or recompressed most photos. Some may not have noticed the degradation in quality, but for the photo purists, including my colleague Jeff L., this was not an improvement.

Today Jeff came by my desk practically jumping for joy. Tucked away in yesterday’s iPhoto update to 7.1.2, where you’d least expect it, is a slender button on the web gallery dialog box: “Show Advanced,” and we all know that means good things for Jeff and his poor pictures. There are two new options in the Advanced section: a checkbox to hide the title of the gallery on your .Mac galleries page (handy for those who have a photography ‘hobby,’ nudge nudge say no more), and a choice between optimized and actual-size photos for downloading. Huzzah!

If you’ve got a web gallery that could benefit from higher-quality download files, try the new setting and let us know your results.

Thanks Jeff

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

More: continued here

While I’m not trying to only focus on security topics, they just seem to pop up more often than not, including today’s serendipitous discovery that TrueCrypt is available for OS X. Security isn’t just about maintaining system integrity (loosely defined as keeping malicious code from getting onto/running on your system). A critical component is ensuring [...]

More: continued here

Filed under: Freeware, Open Source, Security

A new OS X version of the well-known open-source disk encryption software TrueCrypt has been released. Basically, TrueCrypt creates a virtual encrypted disk that mounts in the Finder and which provides on-the-fly 256-bit encryption. This virtual disk can reside on your hard drive or a flash drive and can even be hidden. The new version relies on MacFUSE to bring its magic to the fairer platform.

Unfortunately, the interface is not terribly Mac-like, through this is probably not surprising given its roots. Each virtual disk has to be created and mounted through the TrueCrypt application. Nonetheless, once mounted you can interact with the virtual disk like any other volume mounted in the Finder.

TrueCrypt is a free download from sourceforge.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

More: continued here

The Apple III had been out since November and while it was positioned as a powerful business computer it was, in actuality, one of the worst machines Apple ever produced. Naturally no company is ever going to admit that one of the products they produce is an absolute dog, so…

More: continued here

Filed under: Gaming

If you’re a fan of the Big Bang suite of board games, you’ll be happy to learn that Freeverse has released a fully Universal version of the seven-game package, with performance improvements, sleeker graphics and greater stability. The new version now offers tighter iChat integration so you can better taunt your opponents invite friends to play against you.

The updated package weighs in at a hefty 400MB once installed and offers the same games you’ve come to love: 4-in-a-Row, Backgammon, Checkers, Chess, Mancala, Reversi and Tic-Tac-Toe. The package costs $25 (free for current owners) and you won’t feel like a Blue Moon if you buy it. It offers lots of re-play as these games are classics; my kids love them.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

More: continued here

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Cult of Mac, Leopard

During the latest Linux conference in Melbourne, Australia, Linus Torvalds was quoted by the Sydney Morning Herald saying that the Leopard file system was “complete and utter crap.” As you may know, Torvalds is the parent of the Linux kernel. He said that he still prefers Leopard to Windows Vista; However, he went on to say that both companies are using their operating systems to propel more software and hardware sales.

We’ll refrain from commenting on various drawbacks of Linux distributions when compared to Mac OS X, but if you’re curious about the challenges and pleasures found when moving to Linux, have a look at the Flipping the Linux Switch series produced by our colleagues at Download Squad.

[via MacNN]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

More: continued here

(This is a follow-up to my original piece from 16 January 2008–Putting your HDD on a 80GB diet).
As I pointed out last month:
80GB is not 80GB. It actually formats down to a paltry 74.3GB. Add to that an 11.4GB full Leopard install and you’re down to around 63GB of effective free space.
The MacBook Air’s tiny [...]

More: continued here

Apple quotes the MacBook Air as having a 5 hour battery, but as with most OEM statements about battery life, it should be taken with a grain of salt. The battery life figures quoted by most manufacturers are measured under perfect, almost never practical, circumstances.
They usually use a brand new battery, turn off all wireless [...]

More: continued here