Posted by: Chris Barylick
Date: Wednesday, January 3rd, 2007, 08:00
Category: News
A quick look at the events page for the upcoming Macworld Expo San Francisco show reveals something out of the ordinary; Apple CEO Steve Jobs’ keynote speech, which usually runs from 60 to 90 minutes, is slated to be two hours long this year.
Among the anticipated products expected for discussion, if not release, are an iPhone, iTV, the upcoming Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard” operating system, a Core 2 Duo-based Mac Mini and perhaps an improved iPod.
A lot can be said in an additional 30 to 60 minutes and this should be interesting.
If you have any comments or feedback, let us know.
Posted by: Chris Barylick
Date: Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007, 17:46
Category: How-To
A cool trick posted on Murphy Mac describes how to configure Automator to have your Mac watch for e-mails containing certain criteria such as a specific subject or sender and configure actions such as going to sleep.
This is accomplished by creating a simple Automator program with two actions in its workflow, a one-line AppleScript file and a rule in the Mail program. A small sleeper action for Automator will need to be downloaded and installed from Apple’s web site for the action to occur.
Configuring the action to occur takes just a few minutes with step by step instructions displayed here.
If you’ve seen any other cool tricks, let us know.
Posted by: Chris Barylick
Date: Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007, 14:15
Category: News
A recent market share report released by netapplications.com shows that the Mac OS X market share (with both the the PowerPC and Intel architectures factored in) reached 5.67% in December of 2006, up from 5.39% in December.
Apple’s operating system has now surpassed Windows 2000 for second place in market share positioning. Windows 2000 fell from 8.75% to 5% over the course of 2006 while Linux remain steady at 0.37% and Windows Vista installs pushed it from 0.11% to 0.16% of the total market share.
Windows XP held on to its number one slot, growing from 80% to 85.30% throughout 2006.
The full breakdown of the report is as follows:
Windows XP: 85.30%
Windows 2000: 5.00%
Mac OS: 4.15%
Windows 98: 1.77%
MacIntel: 1.52%
Windows ME: 0.89%
Windows NT: 0.68%
Linux: 0.37%
Windows Vista: 0.16%
Windows CE: 0.04%
Windows 95: 0.03%
Web TV: 0.02%
PSP: 0.02%
Hiptop: 0.02%
Series60: 0.01%
Another January means another round of fortune telling. The week leading up to Macworld Expo is when pundits predict what Apple has in store for us in the new year. With that let’s dive into what Steve Jobs could announce at the Moscone Center in San Francisco one week from today.
From most to least likely…
Read the rest of the story on my ZDNet Blog: The Apple Core.
Posted by: Chris Barylick
Date: Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007, 09:55
Category: News
According to an article on MacNN, Micromat today announced the upcoming release of TechTool Protogo. The new product is an application that allows Mac users to turn a device such as an older iPod or flash drive into a bootable unit packed with several of Micromat’s utilities as well as third party utility programs.
TechTool Protogo will ship on a DVD and will include TechTool Pro Classic (for systems running Mac OS 9 or below), TechTool Pro 4 for Mac OS X and DiskStudio and will support an array of hardware configurations. The program will begin shipping on January 9th at Macworld Expo and be available for $200 with a $135 street price (pre-orders retail for $148 on Micromat’s web site).
The application will require a Macintosh running Mac OS X 10.4 or later, 512 megabytes of RAM and a DVD-ROM drive.
If you have any comments or feedback about this, let us know.
Posted by: Chris Barylick
Date: Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007, 08:56
Category: News
An article over at Engadget highlights Autonet Mobile, the first company that intends to be an Internet service provider for the devices within your car.
The firm will be selling the Autonet wireless unit, a $399 wireless Internet router using what appears to be Verizon’s EV-DO wireless network. Specific details as to available plans and network backbones are scarce as of now, but Autonet Mobile claims that it will provide service on up to 95% of America’s roads when its $50 per month service has launched.
Definitely not a bad idea and in-car wireless access could help ease navigation as well as provide last minute information before arriving at a destination.
If you have any comments or feedback, let us know.
A post over at digg.com shows footage of an iPod vending machine selling Apple’s venerable MP3 player and accessories – recently seen in Asian markets – in action over at a Macy’s department store.
The vending machines feature a touch screen and also accept credit cards to finance these purchases, which can run into the hundreds of dollars.
Take a look for yourself:
Reports have also come in via forum posts that several of these units have also been seen in the terminals of the Atlanta airport.
If you or anyone else you know have seen anything similar, let us know.
Posted by: Chris Barylick
Date: Tuesday, January 2nd, 2007, 08:00
Category: News
An article over at Engadget is reporting that dozens of second generation iPod Nano owners are reporting a high-pitching buzzing/whining sound from their iPod Nano units in one of Apple’s discussion forums.
While most of the reports cite that the units are fully functional aside from this, others have claimed this was the first thing they noticed when they began using the music players. Owners of the 2, 4 and 8 gigabyte capacities have all noticed this problem, leading to speculation that a revised component between the generations of iPod Nanos, such as the backlight or battery, may be the cause of this.
Engadget’s own tests on one iPod Nano revealed that the sound was present, but essentially inaudible unless the headphone was practically lodged in one’s ear.
Apple has experienced similar problems and repaired whining problems with the MacBook, so perhaps a fix is in the works and the problem can be pinned down quickly.
If you’ve experienced this or anything similar to it via your own second generation iPod Nano, please let us know.
A brief article on digg.com shows pictures of a MacBook Pro 15″ laptop’s battery swollen to incredible proportions even when disconnected from power.
If you have an original MacBook Pro with the Intel Core Duo processor, check with Apple about its battery exchange program for these units.
If you have any comments, feedback or have seen swelling to this extent, please let us know.
Another January means another round of fortune telling. The week leading up to Macworld Expo is when pundits predict what Apple has in store for us in the new year. With that let’s dive into what Steve Jobs could announce at the Moscone Center in San Francisco one week from today.
