43: Folders: Deciding Whether to Read a Book: Some Wildly Reductive Heuristics

Merlin Mann shares some completely unfair and subjective criteria to which one should subject potential reading material – specifically nonfiction. However unfair, though, I think these guidelines would prove quite effective.



Mozilla Labs: Introducing Ubiquity

It's like Quicksilver for Firefox – except you would only understand that reference if you are a Mac user. Here, watch this video. Then follow the link.


Ubiquity for Firefox from Aza Raskin on Vimeo.



National Interest: Reflections on Leaving the Party

Susan Eisenhower writes about leaving the party for whom her grandfather had served as president.

Hijacked by a relatively small few, the GOP of today bears no resemblance to Lincoln, Roosevelt or Eisenhower’s party, or many of the other Republican administrations that came after…

As an independent I will now feel comfortable supporting people of any political party who reflect those core values.

Photosynth

This is a really amazing product coming out of Microsoft Live Labs. Unfortunately, the site only works on Windows machines at the moment, but here's a video of it being demonstrated at this year's TED conference.

Tags: politics, literature, firefox, microsoft, technology

Link Collection: MobileMe's Security Mess

How MobileMe handles secure information (or doesn't) is outright unacceptable. Along with making the service more reliable, Apple's MobileMe team needs to be bringing this service up to modern standards in terms of security.

• tlrobinson.net: MobileMe and (lack of) encryption
• Thought Palace: Re: MobileMe Webmail Security — There Is None
• AppleInsider: Inside MobileMe: Web 3 and Web client-server apps (additional thoughts by John Gruber here)

TimesOnline: Lifelike animation heralds new era for computer games

The video with this article is pretty astonishing. This animation is miles beyond anything I've seen before in terms of human realism.





Senator Obama's Remarks at VFW National Convention in Orlando, FL

Obama gave a great speech in front of the Verterans of Foreign Wars earlier today. (You might remember that this is the same group in front of whom McCain had accused Obama of prioritizing politics over party.) As is his usual modus operandi, Obama was very Socratic in his criticism of the Republican nominee, but he was far from passive.

From the speech:

Yesterday, Senator McCain came before you. He is a man who has served this nation honorably, and he correctly stated that one of the chief criteria for the American people in this election is going to be who can exercise the best judgment as Commander in Chief. But instead of just offering policy answers, he turned to a typical laundry list of political attacks. He said that I have changed my position on Iraq when I have not. He said that I am for a path of “retreat and failure.” And he declared, “Behind all of these claims and positions by Senator Obama lies the ambition to be president” – suggesting, as he has so many times, that I put personal ambition before my country.

That is John McCain’s prerogative. He can run that kind of campaign, and – frankly – that’s how political campaigns have been run in recent years. But I believe the American people are better than that. I believe that this defining moment demands something more of us.

If we think that we can secure our country by just talking tough without acting tough and smart, then we will misunderstand this moment and miss its opportunities. If we think that we can use the same partisan playbook where we just challenge our opponent’s patriotism to win an election, then the American people will lose. The times are too serious for this kind of politics. The calamity left behind by the last eight years is too great. So let me begin by offering my judgment about what we’ve done, where we are, and where we need to go.

Also:

I have never suggested that Senator McCain picks his positions on national security based on politics or personal ambition. I have not suggested it because I believe that he genuinely wants to serve America’s national interest. Now, it’s time for him to acknowledge that I want to do the same.

Let me be clear: I will let no one question my love of this country. I love America, so do you, and so does John McCain. When I look out at this audience, I see people of different political views. You are Democrats and Republicans and Independents. But you all served together, and fought together, and bled together under the same proud flag. You did not serve a Red America or a Blue America – you served the United States of America.

So let’s have a serious debate, and let’s debate our disagreements on the merits of policy – not personal attacks. And no matter how heated it gets or what kind of campaign he chooses to run, I will honor Senator McCain’s service, just like I honor the service of every veteran in this room, and every American who has worn the uniform of the United States.

To this point, Obama has run a very respectful campaign. He has been very careful to avoid attacking McCain's character outside of critiquing the type of campaign he's running, but you know the smear artists working for and with McCain aren't going to back down. I wonder how long Obam can last before he feels compelled to turn more negative.

Tags: mobileme, apple inc, politics, technology

The Next Right: Jerome Cosi

By now, I'm sure many of you have heard of Jerome Corsi's new book The Obama Nation. (I made that pun up months ago, dagnabit!) You've probably heard the likes of O'Reilly, Limbaugh, or Hannity praise it to high heaven, but there's a problem. It's filled with wild inaccuracies. Here are some summaries:

• Politico: Obama Pushes Back Hard on Corsi Book
• NY Times: Book Attacking Obama Hopes to Repeat ’04 Anti-Kerry Feat
• Washington Post: Par for Mr. Corsi

In this title article posted on conservative blog The Next Right, Jon Henke takes a brief but hard look at Corsi's methods and history, finding him severely lacking. He strongly recommends that conservatives distance themselves from Mr. Corsi as much as liberals do. I can't express it better than the article's author:

I mean, c'mon. Have some standards. This guy does not deserve the platform, he does not deserve the publicity, and he does not deserve to be treated as member-in-good-standing on the Right.

The Right seems to engage today in social promotion of hatchet men, bullies and political hit men. Those people poison the Right, and - whatever their temporary electoral effects - they serve to discredit us all.

MarketWatch: How Adobe can stop Microsoft

Columnist John C. Dvorak opines over Adobe's tumultuous relationship with Microsoft. To give some context, Adobe is probably the biggest non-OS software vendor on the market. Their products are as ubiquitous as Microsoft Office, QuickTime, Windows Media Player, or iTunes. Occasionally, however, Adobe's products run into traction when a company like Apple or Microsoft creates a similar product to Adobe's. In the case of this article, Mr. Dvorak looks at the Flash-Silverlight rivalry that is beginning to brew over Internet media delivery.

The author recommends Adobe adopt a Linux strategy, making their products more universal due to being available on all three major computing platforms. He encourages the software developer to face Microsoft head on rather than continue to outrun them. Unfortunately, Mr. Dvorak fails to address a couple of problems.

1. Licensing. Adobe builds closed-source applications with no sharing among competitors (with a couple notable technologies such as PDF and FLEX). In contrast, any Linux application I can think of is licensed through some sort of open standard such as GPL. I doubt it is required, but open-source is certainly expected on the Linux platform. How would Adobe adapt to this? Would they at all? How would the Linux community react to the applications retaining their proprietary status? Reaction is important because of the second major problem.
   
   
2. Profit. Again, how many Linux applications can you think of that cost money? Of those, how many cost several hundred dollars? If Adobe doesn't consider revising their prices, the Linux could very well balk at the investment required to purchase Adobe products. On the other hand, if they offer their products on Linux at reduced prices (if not free as is standard practice), they risk angering and alienating their core customers on Windows and Macintosh systems. Let's not forget to mention that Adobe also has to worry about shareholders.

Now I could be wrong about these issues as my current experience with Linux is shaky at best. Furthermore, Adobe could possibly pull some amazing strategy to appeal to Linux users that I couldn't imagine, but I don't see it happening easily or soon.

Tags: politics, adobe, technology, linux

Mark Simonson Studio: Indiana Jones and the Fonts on the Maps

DId you ever wonder what fonts are used on the maps in Indiana Jones movies? I know I didn't, and yet this this post is very cool.

via Daring Fireball



NYT: A Remarkable Photo From Tornado Country

Wow. Just wow.

also via Daring Fireball



Ars Technica: Energy storage to smooth green power sources

This is an interesting piece about different options for storing energy generated by renewable methods, hopefully answering the concern that most renewable sources of energy are variable in nature (like wind, tides, and the sun).

Tags: technology, environment

Huffington Post: Joseph J. Andrew: On My Switch From Clinton to Obama

Another big endorsement for Obama. He served as chair of the DNC during the Clinton administration and was one of the first to endorse Hillary.

My friend Ben has taken to calling him "the Obamanator." I think he should trademark it.



Ars Technica: Is Lessig's Free Culture just a modern Das Kopyright?

According to The Progress & Freedom Foundation, it is – but you have to look at Lessig's ideas with a fair amount of paranoia and take some quotes out of context to get to that conclusion.



Ars Technica: An elephant never forgets? George W. Bush's lost e-mails

To make a long story short, the current administration jettisoned an archiving implementation that worked and replaced it with one that doesn't. Seven years later, it still doesn't.

I could make a comment here about reoccurring themes, but I won't.

Tags: politics, technology

The school year is beginning to wrap up, and the next four weeks are going to be insane. Here are some links to keep you busy while I try to figuratively keep my head above water.

TED Talks: Johnny Lee: Creating tech marvels out of a $40 Wii Remote



This video literally had me saying "whoa" out-loud!



Kotaku: echochrome Demo Changing Minds Tomorrow



Another amazing yet simple piece of technology – makes me wish for a PS3.



Seattlepi.com: Why Hillary Clinton makes my wife scream

While my wife has never raised her voice at a Clinton story or speech, she has made it clear to me that Senator Clinton has entirely lost her vote at this point. While I believe that voting for policy is more important than voting for a person (even if I find that person subjectively unlikable), I can't help but wonder what a Clinton nomination might do to voter turnout in November.

Perhaps my fears are unfounded.



Infinite Loop: Exclusive preview: RapidWeaver matures with version 4

New version of RapidWeaver coming: Yay! I still don't have Leopard (and it's Leopard-only): Boo!

Tags: video games, politics, rapidweaver, ted, technology

Ars Technica: With HD DVD dead, Blu-ray's next threat is digital downloads

This format war is finally over. Lots of consumers got the short end of the stick. Some companies are poised to lose bucket-loads of cash. I'm not a fan of format wars.


Apple: iPod shuffle Updates

The current 1GB model is dropping to $49, and a 2GB model is coming at $69. I am a fan of the iPod shuffle.



Scribd: Meet iPaper

It's kind of like YouTube for documents. Scribd has been around for a while now, but this software revision looks cool. I'm definitely trying this out!



College Humor: Irish Beatles



Hilarious.

Tags: technology, itunes/ipods, silly

I was going to post some news on the RIAA, but I felt it would hurt my Karma. Here's some awesome stuff instead!



What Kind of World Do You Want?

Here's a video sharing community by Five for Fighting dedicated to giving contributions to charities you select every time a video you upload is viewed. It's a neat concept, and some people have created some very moving videos.



Adobe Labs: Buzzword

This is an amazing online word processor. It's responsive, recognizes some common keyboard commands, and just plain looks nice.


via Daring Fireball



Fluid

Speaking of web applications, this neat little utility lets you create separate desktop links to all the web apps you use. Each web application opens in its own site-specific browser, giving them their own workspaces separate from your traditional web browsing. It looks really great, but I don't have Leopard yet. However, if you do, it looks worth checking out!

also via Daring Fireball

Tags: riaa, technology, software, adobe

From Disks to Discs

image from stock.xchng

Like the floppy disk of the eighties and early nineties, the CD-ROM has become ubiquitous with computing. Apple, along with Sony, was among the first computer manufacturers to eschew diskette drives in their computers to rely entirely on optical media. The iMac, released in 1998, was widely criticized for its lack of a floppy disk drive, abandoning a technology that was still widely used. In fact, it's not unusual to still see floppy drives on computers these ten years later. By contrast, it was not long before all Apple computers were without floppy drives in standard configurations.


image courtesy Apple, Inc.

Apple bet on a few things. Hard drives were growing large enough to store user documents and files without the meager additional space allotted by floppies. CD-ROMs would become the dominant media for shipping and installing applications, and email would provide a viable means of sharing documents with others. All of these came to be, but early adopters of Apple's diskette-less products did have some hurdles to overcome initially. I remember because I was one of them.

Today, floppy disks are all but useless. Zip drives, SuperDisks, and Sony HiFD all failed to revitalize the technology. Optical disks became the dominant portable media for computers, and they remain so to this day.

Imagining a World Without Discs

While not the first laptop to ship sans optical drive (Lenovo does and Gateway used to), the recent MacBook Air has probably received the most attention for this omission. Apple products garner a great deal of hype and media coverage – more than any other computer hardware manufacturer – so it comes as no surprise this anti-feature is at the center of much attention.


image from stock.xchng

In the case of the MacBook Air, Apple is doing something that they never did for the omission of floppy disk drives. They are offering first-party solutions, Remote Disc and a USB-powered SuperDrive in this instance. However, the move cannot be denied. Does Apple view optical media as becoming obsolete – at least in terms of computing? Will future Macintosh products begin dropping optical drives the way they recently dropped modems?

This may seem far-fetched, but some replacements to optical media are already on the horizon. For one, we have flash drives. If I need to quickly share documents or files with a nearby computer, I simply toss those files onto the flash drive attached to my keychain and pop it into an available USB port. As far as backup goes, external hard drives and flash storage devices (for small stuff) are already affordable enough to offer a compelling alternative to burning CDs or DVDs of data.

I don't think it's beyond the realm of imagination to envisions packaged software coming on small flash drives as opposed to optical media in the future. Even the most complicated of professional software is seldom more than a few hundred megabytes. With the exception of games, commercial operating systems are the only form of packaged software I can think of more than a couple gigabytes in size. Could you imagine installing Office by popping a USB flash drive into your computer rather than a CD?

Digital distribution is the other potential replacement for optical media. Already, films, music, independent software, and many video games can be purchased and downloaded online. Services like iTunes allow you to purchase or rent feature length films without having to open a box. Games as large as Halo: Combat Evolved and Burnout 3: Takedown are available for download on XBox Live Arcade. Isn't it feasible to imagine purchasing Photoshop directly from Adobe, downloading the entire application as a disk image, and then installing the software from that disk image? I could even back up the image to an external hard drive or flash drive in case of deletion or a system restore.

These solutions are not without problems. Affordable bandwidth comes to mind, and sometimes you just want to burn a DVD of some special event to share with others. However, the solutions will come with time, perhaps even through wholly unexpected means. The MacBook Air may be currently handicapped by its lack of an optical drive, but, ten years from now, we may be considering those same devices largely useless.

Tags: opinion, technology

NYT: The Dr. Seuss Jumble: Naming Web Sites

David Pogue wonders if the web has run out of creativity in site naming – specifically citing numerous startups with completely nonsense names. From the article:

But here's a little wakeup call: People will learn to love your site's wacky name only if they fall in love with the site itself. Google and Yahoo became household nutty names only because everyone loved their services. They did not succeed because they had silly names.

As long as no more sites put random dots in the middle of their names, I'll be happy. (I'm looking at you ma.gnolia.com and del.icio.us!)



Ripten: Rose-Tinted Nostalgia: The Top Five Franchises That Nintendo Forgot

Not only has Nintendo forgotten about these franchises, I had too. However, seeing The Adventures of Lolo and StarTropics on the list brought back some fond memories, and I don't think Super Mario RPG was forgotten. It just had to go in a different direction once Square was no longer involved, and we ended up with Paper Mario as the spiritual successor to Super Mario RPG.



Ars Technica: Apple, AT&T dial up patent infringement lawsuit with Visual Voicemail

Yes, this case has merit, but I still don't like it. It's not like Apple was exactly secretive about Visual Voicemail in the months leading up to iPhone's release. Why didn't this company sue back in January of this year?

Tags: silly, technology, video games

BW Online: Commentary: Sorry, Steve: Here's Why Apple Stores Won't Work

Here's an article from 2001 about why the Apple stores would all be closed within two years. It's been making rounds through the Mac blogs, but I thought I'd post it here too!



TED: Announcing 2008 TED Prize winners

The TED Prize was introduced in 2005, and it is unlike any other award. Although the winners receive a prize of $100,000 each, the real prize is that they are granted a WISH. "A wish to change the world." There are no formal restrictions on the wish. We ask our winners to think big and to be creative. The goal is that it creates an incredible sense of excitement and common purpose. It inspires the TED community, and all those who hear about the wish, to offer their help in making the wish come true.

TED is a neat organization. I don't always agree with some of the positions they promote, but I like their hearts and the inspiration they foster.



TechCrunch: Q&A With Senator Barack Obama On Key Technology Issues

Obama is one of the only politicians out there who actually seems to get technology and be able to discuss it intelligently.



CNET: Top Ten Terrible Tech Products: Windows Vista

Really? Vista is one of the ten worst technology products? By what standards? Methinks someone is desperate for attention, and I just gave it to them...

Tags: politics, ted, technology, microsoft, apple inc

Some of the visual asthetics of Leopard bother me in the screenshots. It's the way I am. I'm a UI junkie, and, while I like visual flair, I grow annoyed if the eye candy begins to detract from the experience as a whole. Once I get to use Leopard, I might change my mind, but right now I'm not sold on the new menu bar, the new Dock, or the way stacks fan out. Well, strike that last one. I gained some appreciation for that interface nuance earlier today.


image from apple.com

I always disliked how the stack curved slightly to the right, until I was working this morning and I noticed how my mouse hand drifts to the right when I try to go straight up. In fact (and I tested this against an enlarged screenshot, so you know its scientific), my hand drifted along basically the same arc the stack has!

In other words, this interface element that looks like useless eye candy actually has purpose. It's easier to intuitively navigate than a straight column. Once again, Apple shows its attention to detail even with an interface element that most users won't give a second glance.

Tags: macintosh, software, technology, os x, leopard

The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks

I don't think I've giggled so much since I found Engrish.com!



Daring Fireball: The ‘Un’ in ‘Unsupported’

I think I finally understand a certain misguided mindset that I’ve been baffled by for a decade. This mindset is exemplified by the sort of person who thinks that Apple “screwed them over” with the release of the iPhone 1.1.1 update.

The mindset manifests in many forms, but what it boils down to is this: a sense of entitlement that users should be able to do unsupported things and yet still be supported. That it makes no sense to expect support after taking unsupported actions is why I’ve found it baffling.

I also think more people are going to be affected by this mindset as these unsupported hacks become more accessible to the general public. What was once accomplished by only the most hardcore is now freely downloadable with easy-to-use interfaces that typical users can understand. Personally, I don't understand why you would want to take the risk with such an expensive purchase, but to each his/her own.



Mac Mojo: Welcome to Word Publishing Layout View

On the one hand, I'm glad to see this evolution of Word, but, on the other, I've already been doing this in Pages for a couple of years. Also, I find some of the design decisions baffling. Custom background surfaces? Who knows, maybe it will grow on me if I pick this up. I'm living sans Office at the moment, and it's not impossible, just inconvenient at times.

Tags: silly, technology, microsoft, iphone

rentzsch.com: apple's antiCAPSLOCK

So Apple’s modern keyboards have a bias against activating Caps Lock at all, and another bias to turn it off as soon as possible. That fits in perfectly with how I (mis)use Caps Lock, but I can’t help thinking it’s ALSO a subtle nudge to those to abuse Caps Lock to TONE IT DOWN A LITTLE.

That's all kinds of cool. (Personally, I've disabled the caps lock key on my laptop.)



dive into mark: If wishes were iPhones, then beggars would call

Mark Pilgrim wonders why people buy things they know they will have to essentially break to get to do what they want. I have to agree. Buy what's best for you, and use it as intended. That always nets the best results.



Opposable Thumbs: Bungie to become an independent company, leaving Microsoft

If by leaving, you mean "become a second-party developer with the option to develop for additional platforms," then yes, Bungie is leaving Microsoft. I'm not keeping my hopes up, but Macworld seems to think Bungie could return to the Mac gaming scene after this move. (As some of you might now, Bungie once developed the Mac-only Marathon series, followed by Mac-friendly Myth, and Halo was first previewed at a Macworld conference.)

Tags: technology, video games, iphone

Gateway One


image from Gateway

Surprisingly, it doesn't look half-bad, and it features some decent specs with prices between $1300 and $1800. Unfortunately, the processor speeds are pretty shameful compared to competing products (and yes, I feel a tinge of irony typing that sentence).



Ars Technica: A day on the Surface: a hands-on look at Microsoft's new computing platform

This looks pretty cool, and the videos are amazing. Anyone familiar with Jeff Han's research will instantly recognize what's going on here, but Microsoft's implementation is very smooth and accessible. I just wish they would be a little more aggressive at making this available to consumers. The industry needs progress like this.



Daring Fireball: The New Zunes

Why is Microsoft being so hush-hush about their new media players – unveiling the new Zunes at midnight? Are they ashamed of them or something?



Macworld: Is Apple On the Wrong Path?

Christopher Breen makes some good points about some of Apple's recent decisions and how they hurt Apple's image as a customer-friendly corporation. However, for the record, I've tried the new keyboard, and I like it.



Ars Technica: Picking a new fight: Halo 3 multiplayer review

Ars reviews the multiplayer portion of Halo 3.

It's clear that the real value of the Halo 3 purchase is in online play, and Bungie.net is the glue that holds all of this together ... Dump in a few more players, take the time to design your own game types, and you have the next few months of your life planned out.

Tags: technology, microsoft, video games, zune, apple inc

You know life is busy when a full day passes before I blog about new Apple products! The balance of the universe has been upset, but these product announcements seem spiffy enough to keep it in balance anyway.

iPod, iPod, iPod, and iPod

image courtesy Apple, Inc.

The iPod line saw some major updates, but the shuffle only received some color changes. On the other hand, Apple seems obsessed with radically altering the iPod nano (née iPod mini) every few months, and this release is no different. The nano now features video playback, games, video out, Cover Flow – basically everything its big brother features. Only these features are packed in an anodized aluminum enclosure that's just about 2" wide and less that 3" tall, about a quarter-inch thick, and weighs less than two ounces. Storage capacities have remained the same.


image courtesy Apple, Inc.

The iPod that started it all is now known as the iPod classic. It has all the features we know and love about iPod. However, Apple has ditched the plastic enclosure for aluminum, and the iPod classic is available in 80 GB or 160 GB(!) capacities. Something tells me the iPod classic name may be short-lived as it will someday be completely replaced by the big news of the event.


image courtesy Apple, Inc.

It's the iPod we Apple fanatics were hoping for the second we saw the iPhone. The iPod touch takes all the features of the iPod and wraps it in an iPhone finish. This thing is sleek, but one concession is storage. It comes in 8 GB and 16 GB configurations, and the fact that the iPod classic has ten-times the storage for a lower price is rather disconcerting. Really, though, it's a touch-screen iPod. That almost seems worth it in itself. Add in Safari, YouTube, and the iTunes Wi-Fi Music Store, and they may have a winner on their hands. Expect this thing to be hard to find during the holidays.

Other News

• The iPhone saw a $200 price drop, and the 4 GB model will soon be extinct. To calm the angry mobs (read: early adopters), Apple is offering a $100 gift certificate to everyone who bought an iPhone before the reductions (and who are not eligible for the rebate).
• iTunes now features album ratings and ringtones.
• The iPod Hi-Fi is no more. That's a shame. I wanted one of these for presenting. I was just waiting for a price drop. Kinda ironic, no?

Overall, there is some good stuff here. The iPod touch is particularly exciting, and it again raises the bar for digital music players. The nano and classic are even better values than before, and the iPhone will probably see an uptick in sales based on the price reduction. More than any company, Apple knows how to create covet-worthy products, and they just continue to outdo themselves. I wonder what's in store for Apple Expo later this month.

Tags: technology, itunes/ipods

Really, I'm working on those Sibelius 5 and Numbers write-ups. Maybe a three-day weekend will allow me to catch up. Heaven forbid I'm still behind when I install Leopard!

Engadget: It's on: Apple event slated for September 5th



Bring on the Cover Flow iPods. Oh, and the tag-line is interesting in context with this excerpt from an old Apple Corp. press release about the Beatles breaking up (found here):

"The world is still spinning and so are we and so are you. When the spinning stops--that'll be the time to worry. Not before. The Beatles are alive and well and the beat goes on. The beat goes on."

In related news, Ringo Starr's entire back catalogue is now on iTunes.



Presentation Zen: PowerPoint tips that are clear and to the point.

Garr Reynolds reviews a new book about PowerPoint called Clear and To the Point: 8 Psychological Principles for Compelling PowerPoint Presentations. He highly recommends the book and illustrates some of the discussed concepts. Even when reviewing another's work, Mr. Reynolds remains highly interesting and informative!

Tags: technology, powerpoint, itunes/ipods

A couple of interesting images related to forthcomeing Apple products have been floating around this week. (Well, they're interesting to me at any rate, so you get to hear about them.)

The first image that struck me was in Engadget's report on a new keyboard for the upcoming iMac revision. This falls firmly under the "rumor and speculation" category, but it seems inline with Apple's current design philosophy. One item of debate, though, has centered around the apparent removal of the apple logo from the cmd keys on either side of the keyboard. See the comparison shots below:

x
photos courtesy of Apple and Gizmodo respectively

Whether or not the second image is real, I'm surprised this cosmetic change hasn't already been implemented. Apple documentation seldom (if ever) refers to an "Apple" key while "cmd-" is commonly documented. Furthermore, Andy Hertzfeld writes about Jobs' intense dislike for the keyboard Apple logo on folklore.org.

From the article:

"There are too many Apples on the screen! It's ridiculous! We're taking the Apple logo in vain! We've got to stop doing that!"

After we told him that we had to display the command key symbol with each item that had one, he told us that we better find a different symbol to use instead of the Apple logo, and, because it affected both the manuals and the keyboard hardware, we only had a few days to come up with something else.

Therefore, if future Apple keyboards eschew the use of Apple logos on the cmd keys, it should really come as no surprise.

The second thing to pique my interest came way of Think Secret's posting of some recent Leopard screenshots. In the shots was a picture of the Finder's new Path Bar:


photo courtesy of Think Secret

I don't find this interesting because of a similar Windows Vista feature. Rather, it's significant because this is another NEXTSTEP feature to reappear in OS X. (Really, one of these days I'm going to write a very long-winded post about why I view Mac OS X more as NEXTSTEP version 5.x more than Mac OS 10.x.)

In order, the shots below represent OPENSTEP 4.2 released in the late nineties, two developer previews of Mac OS X, and the public beta version of Mac OS X released in 2000. Note that a path bar is visible in all screens except the Mac OS X Public Beta, where it suddenly disappears.

xx

these shots are all courtesy of GUIdebook

The new Finder Path Bar is definitely more minimal than those previous incarnations, but I think it is yet another indication of the influence Mac OS X's NEXT roots has on its continued development. Also, as Mac OS X continues to evolve, I think we're going to see a lot more small but welcome enhancements like these slip in under the radar. Now, if only they would fix the weirdness that is the Leopard dock...

It often strikes me as fascinating that so many advances at Apple owe so much to their roots, even as far back as the development of the original Macintosh more than twenty years ago.

Tags: technology, macintosh, leopard, os x

Presentation Zen (the Book)

Congratulations on the book deal, Garr! I'll be buying a copy as soon as they're available!



Multi-touch support for MPX – MPX: The Multi-Pointer X Server

Multitouch support for Unix X Windows server. If you have a *nix machine, a development version of this is already available.



Joystiq: Special Coverage of E3 2007

Instead of trying to tell you about all the things I'm stoked about from this year's E3, I'll just point you to this site's excellent coverage. You can get excited on your own.

Tags: video games, technology

I saw this a while ago but forgot to post about it. It seems Microsoft is subtly trying to steal thunder from Ubuntu nowadays. Compare below and ask, "Could this be mere coincidence?" I think not.


Here is the Ubuntu logo.


Here is the Microsoft Alumni Network logo.

Aping a Linux distribution logo? I mean really. Props to whoever pointed this out to me...

Tags: technology, microsoft, opinion, linux

iPhone in depth: the Ars review
As usual, Ars Techica turns out a review to end all reviews. This 15 page, 19,000+ word epic covers every detail of Apple's new phone. If you are planning on being an early iPhone-adopter, this is a must-read.



Ars Technica: Sony announces price cut, new 80GB PlayStation 3 model for North America

Things might be getting interesting again on the PS3 front. After this 17% price reduction, sales have surged on Amazon.com by over 2500%, and it is currently in the #1 spot in Amazon's video game sales. On top of this, Sony will begin shipping an 80 GB model at the $599 price-point with a bundled copy of Motorstorm.

Tags: technology, video games, iphone

Autoblog Green: Subaru sells 100,000 PZEVs and sends nothing to the dump for three years

Subaru of Indiana has gone three years without sending any waste to a landfill through reusing waste, recycling it, or using it to supply power to Indianapolis' power grid. That's incredible! Now if their cars only got better gas mileage. On a related note, it seems Toyota has some plants that are 95% waste free. Again, the U.S. automakers are being shown up.



Engadget: How Far We've Come
iPhone meets its great-grandpappy.



Instructables: Interactive Multitouch Display

As enamored as I am with multitouch technology, I just don't see myself finishing this particular project...

Tags: environment, technology, iphone

Apple – iPhone
The iPhone site got a makeover today. Gone is the black spartan appearance. Now it looks a lot like the iPod + iTunes page.





Ars Technica: Notebook mania leads to revised PC market projections

As notebooks prove themselves more and more capable of replacing desktops for most people – with the exception of serious power users – I expect this trend will continue.



Copyblogger: Do You Make These Mistakes When You Write?

Coppyblogger reminds us of some common grammar mistakes many are guilty of (including myself).



Presentation Zen: One secret to a healthy life (and a great presentation)

The problem with most presentation is that they are too long, not too short. Performers, for example, know that the trick is to leave the stage while the audience still loves you and don’t want you to go, not after they have had enough and are "full" of you.

Tags: technology, blogging, powerpoint, iphone

Intrepid Liberal Journal: Workers Have the Right To Remain Silent: A Podcast Interview With the ACLU's Bruce Barry

Basically, employers can currently ignore the First Amendment rights of their employees – and this should be especially important to bloggers. If you write or say something that upsets them, contradicts decisions, upsets their political views, or merely generally irritates them, they may fire you. The podcast discusses the issue very thoroughly.

It's ironic that I should stumble upon this story on the tenth anniversary of this Supreme Court decision (and I don't mean ironic in the rain-on-your-wedding-day way).



PC Magazine Review: Dell XPS M1330

This is, without a doubt, the sexiest Windows-based laptop ever created. If it weren't for the blue LEDs and the obligatory marketing stickers, it might just be as drool-worthy as a MacBook Pro.

However, we need to work on the name. XPS M1330? That's like running into a strikingly beautiful and achingly intelligent woman but learning her name is Hanktrude. It just mars the experience. Anyway, cool features, light, small, $2,200. Check it out if you use THOSE computers.



Here are a bunch of prerelease reviews of the iPhone. Nothing staggering here at all. THe general gist is that the iPhone works exactly as advertized (including the improved battery life). The touch screen works well but takes getting used to. EDGE is slow. If you want to read the full reviews, click away!

• The Mossberg Solution: The iPhone is a Breakthrough Handheld Computer
• NYT: The iPhone Matches Most of Its Hype
• Newsweek: At Last, the iPhone
• USAToday: Apple's iPhone Isn't Perfect, But It's Worthy of the Hype

So will the iPhone do to the mobile phone industry what the iPod did for digital music. Who knows? It could be incredible. It could be the next iPod HiFi. Still, if I try one out in a store and don't instantly dislike it, that will say a lot about it as a cell phone!

via DF and TUAW



Oliver Toast: Introducing MiniMail

This small app creates a small notification window for Apple's Mail application – much like the notifier featured in modern versions of Outlook.


screenshot by Oliver Toast

It's a neat idea, and it costs $9. Personally, I'm happy with Mail.appetizer which offers the same basic functionality for free. (However, MiniMail definitely offers more features.) Here's what Mail.appetizer looks like:





Ars Technica: Microsoft's anti-virtualization stance: forget DRM, think Apple

Ken Fisher thinks Microsoft's stance that limitation of Home editions of Windows virtualization based on DRM concerns is a snowjob. The real motivation may be to make it more expensive for Mac users to create virtual Windows machines.

Microsoft using arbitrary methods to stifle the competition? I can't imagine...



Ars Technica: Exonerated defendant sues RIAA for malicious prosecution

The title says it all.

Tags: technology, software, microsoft, riaa

Whoa. I completely let these events get past me. The first link is an interview between Walt Mossberg and Steve Jobs and the second is a combined discussion by Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher with Steve Jobs and Bill Gates on stage together. Good stuff!

• D5: Apple CEO Steve Jobs [Video]
• D5: Transcript – Bill Gates and Steve Jobs at D5

Apple - iPhone - TV Ads

The name says it all ... coming June 29. Me? I just want an iPod that looks like one of these. The sooner iPhone gets out of the gate, the sooner a widescreen iPod takes a bite out of my wallet.



Polar Clock

This clock is completely mesmerizing.



Bean: An OS X Word Processor



This is a lightweight, free, open-souce word processor for OS X. It has broad document compatibility, but its features are somewhat limited (as is to be expected with free software). I've only used it once so far, but it seems to be stable and snappy. Really, my only complaint is that the toolbar icons could look a little bit nicer. Head over to the site, and download it for your Mac!

Tags: software, technology, iphone

Another year has past, and another memories DVD is finished for our outgoing fifth graders. This year's video project followed very much the same workflow as past years', and the entire process was very smooth.

The Good

The new MacBook Pro performed like a champ except for when I was overtaxing memory. I think it's already time to add a couple of gigs, but I only experienced one application (iDVD) hang throughout the entire process. Also, after burning 110 copies of the video, only one coaster was produced that I know of. Again, the results were good overall.

Keynote Pro's Barcelona theme and Keynote's own shape drawing capabilities came in handy. The drawing tools in Keynote enabled me to create "tabs" that helped make photographs in the video look mounted as if in a scrapbook. Barcelona helped create a very unique feel for the slides about a class trip, and I'll definitely be inclined to purchase additional themes from Keynote Pro in the future.

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Finally, Lemkesoft's GraphicConverter gave me a good alternative to PhotoShop Elements (which is not yet a Universal Binary for Intel Macs). I was impressed with this software overall, but I may still get a new copy of PS Elements whenever a Universal Binary is released.

The Less Than Good

I wanted to use a song our children recorded as the background music to the video, but the sound quality of the recording was so poor, it really wasn't an option. The only other complaint I have is that a second Keynote theme I purchased, called Rounded Corners by PagesUser, wasn't as useful as I had hoped. (Also, the purchasing experience was pretty poor.)

I also have to continually remind myself that the transitions Push Up, Push Down, Grid Left, and Grid Right do not export to video correctly and should be avoided when building the slideshow in Keynote.

Final Note

This year's project was done with the same versions of iWork and iLife as last year, so everything went about the same. The better hardware smoothed out the process, but this year was really a refinement of last year's techniques. Hopefully, new versions of iWork and iLife will come along about the same time as Leopard, and I'll have some new features to play with for next time.

If you want to see a more detailed description of how I put these slideshow videos together, read this post on my Simply Presentation page: From Keynote to iDVD.

Tags: technology, software

It's the last week of the school year, and things are insane. Here are some quick bits to keep you entertained until I can formulate a more substantial post.

•••

I just finished supporting one of our fourth grade teacher's movie-making project with her class. The children wrote, directed, and starred in their own production. A good time was had by all – except for us adults who had to piece everything together in the end!

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editing the film in iMovie & iDVD

On a related note, I'm also trying to finish up this year's fifth grade memories DVD. Even though I'm ahead of schedule compared to previous years, it still feels like this project will never be done! Throw a talent show into the mix, and things just get nutty!

•••

In totally unrelated news, I noticed that the most recent version of NeoOffice displays the correct "close" widget on unsaved documents! You might remember that I noted this as a flaw in my overview of NeoOffice earlier this year.




•••

Finally, this made me utter a hushed "woot!" of awe:



To paraphrase the cinematic trailer – it's about time, indeed.

Tags: work, video games, technology, neooffice

Ars Technica: IBM's POWER6 flies the coop at 4.7GHz

Of course, some armchair analyst's are already saying that this is proof that Apple made a mistake when they abandoned the PPC architecture. However, it is important to note that the Mac Pro (formerly PowerMac) would not have seen a major upgrade since August of 2005, and it would likely still be running processors that topped out under 3GHz. In terms of laptops, MacBook Pros (formerly PowerBooks) would be in even sadder condition, still hobbled by the 6-year-old G4 with its 100 MHz system bus.

If Apple had not transitioned when it did, it is likely their computer division would be in a world of hurt right now if it existed at all.



Macworld: Suit against Apple claims false advertising on displays

Intriguing. I'll probably keep an eye on this case as it affects my computer. I can't say I can really tell the difference, but I do believe Apple should be more honest and forthright with their customers.

Tags: technology, apple inc

Here are two good Time articles. One is about Al Gore's possible return to the political arena, and the other is an excerpt from his new book.

• Book Excerpt: The Assault on Reason
• The Last Temptation of Al Gore

The Bills (Gates and Clinton) unite to bring free online tools to communities wishing to decrease their carbon footprints, and a company named Business Objects is looking to provide cities with open source solutions in the efforts to curb detrimental climate changes.

• Ars Technica: Attacking climate change with open data
• Nobel Intent: Microsoft and the Clinton Foundation team up to tackle climate change

Ars Technica: Why writing in games matters: Part II—challenges of interactive storytelling

This entry focuses specifically on the challenges of fitting a plot (linear by nature) into modern games (nonlinear by design). Good stuff.



AVING USA: 120-inch wide touchscreen display 'T-VIEW'



Wow! Any word on pricing?

Tags: politics, environment, literature, technology

Ever since a rather unfortunate debacle of litigation involving Apple and a couple of rumor blogs, a very legitimate question has begun to float around the Internet. Can bloggers be placed in the same general category as traditional media journalists?

Weblogs – more commonly known as blogs – come in a variety of flavors. Many are casual daily journals that act as online diaries. Some have specific topics such as law, technology, or politics. Others are aimed at professional development and self improvement. A few are just pleasantly quirky (yet intelligent). Additionally, many blogs, like my own, fall into multiple categories simultaneously. With over seventy million blogs representing peoples from all over the world, the blogging community has became a force difficult to ignore.

Fortunatley, according to a recent Ars Technica story, (also linked to in my Links Blog), the House of Representatives is beginning to realize the importance of the blogging community and the journalistic potential of the individuals involved.

From the article:

Instead of requiring journalists to be tied to a news organization, the bill now defines "journalism" to focus more on the function of the job: "the gathering, preparing, collecting, photographing, recording, writing, editing, reporting, or publishing of news or information that concerns local, national, or international events or other matters of public interest for dissemination to the public."

Traditionally, one has had to be associated with an established media outlet (i.e. News Corp., CNN, The Wall Street Journal, etc.) to be considered a "real" journalist with all the rights and responsibilities associated with the label. This bill could completely change that, granting journalistic rights to any individuals documenting events that serve the public interest.

The defining of "public interest" is important, though, in that not every person who runs a blog is necessarily affected by this bill. Again, the Ars article makes this point clear:

The Free Flow of Information Act was reworked after its introduction with the specific intent of including bloggers under the broader definition of journalism. According to a section-by-section analysis of the bill, "The act would apply to web logs ('blogs') that engage in journalism." Although the law is not likely meant to include every person who writes on the Internet, it doesn't create a litmus test for what constitutes "engaging in journalism."

Some media outlets like the Newspaper Association of America and the National Association of Broadcasters are supporting this bill. While specifically aimed at the revealing of confidential sources, I think the important aspect of this bill is the credibility it lends toward bloggers.

In all truth, I have come to prefer blogs over newspapers and televised news programs when it comes to information aggregation. So much traditional media has been relegated to simply "reporting the facts" in an ADHD-inducing matter that seldom allows for deeper analysis of the issues.

In contrast, there are many blogs that are great sources of investigative reporting and political commentary, but very few of these are controlled by a corporate agenda, nor are they motivated by what stories generate the best ratings (though one online publication recently admitted to publishing fluff for the sake of page hits). They are independent world citizens who care about keeping the public well-informed and work hard to do so. That passion gives them a legitimacy that no affiliate label could ever achieve. Let me defer to Jon Stewart in his April 27 interview with Bill Moyers:

[You can] find people that are doing incredibly complex and interesting and urgent journalism ... A lot of those blog reporters and all of those things are bringing a lot of urgency and a lot of momentum to stories that wouldn't normally carry any momentum.

In a world of news dominated by celebrity gossip, miracle cures, and top 10 lists, journalistic blogs are a breath of fresh air. Can bloggers be legitimate journalists? This House bill is a firm step in the direction of "yes."

Tags: blogging, technology, opinion

Apple: A Greener Apple

Steve Jobs writes another open letter. This time he scribes about the steps Apple is taking toward more environmentally responsible products and manufacturing processes. (Also, he rightly takes Greenpeace to task for praising other companies based on their proposed plans rather than results.)

Ironically, based on this plan, Greenpeace has increased Apple's environmental ranking.



Ars Technica: Study shows complicated interplay between anger, aggression, and gaming

From the article:

The response of those playing violent games was more aggressive, but barely so: roughly nine out of the 60 responses were scored as aggressive, compared to about seven for those playing nonviolent games. These sorts of results are typical of the response caused by exposure to any violent media; the authors even note that a study that put people in a hot room registered a similar rise in aggression.

Has anyone ever thought to blame societal violence on bad temperature control?



Macworld: Digg users show who's the boss in Web 2.0 world

I watched this whole thing play out last night. It was bizarre (sometimes frustrating) but ultimately empowering. While I disagree with the practice of pirating media, this landslide was amazing to watch. It's yet another example of how the internet has empowered the people beyond what politicians and corporations can control through classic bullying.

Tags: technology, video games, environment, apple inc

Apple, Microsoft, and Nintendo all had very lucrative financial statemets last quarter. Apple was the quietest of the three with a quarterly profit of (only) $770 million. Nintendo didn't break out their last quarter from the statement, but they raked in about $1.5 billion in yearly profits, and Microsoft continues its profitable enterprises with nearly $5 billion in quarterly profits. The only bad news in the Microsoft statement is its entertainment division (home of the XBox 360 and the Zune), which posted a $200 million loss.

Can you imagine being so filthy rich that you can swallow a $200 million loss? I know I can't.

• Apple Reports Second Quarter Results
• Ars Technica: Nintendo reports monster profits, promises increased Wii production
• Microsoft Reports Record Profits – Robust demand for Windows Vista and the 2007 Microsoft Office system drives 72% growth in earnings per share

Ars Technica: We come not to bury Kutaragi, but to praise him

The "Father of the PlayStation" is stepping down from his position as chairman of Sony Computer Entertainment for unannounced reasons. Kazuo Hirai will be taking his place.



Daring Fireball: Interview: Dino Dai Zovi

Gruber has a nice and thorough interview with one of the individuals who recently hacked a Mac at CanSecWest. If only Maynor or Elich had been this open to discussion a year ago...



Engadget: Meizu updates miniOne: clearly, it's no iPhone clone

Uh-huh... Even the order of some of the icons are the same.


left: iPhone, right: miniOne (in case you couldn't tell)



Flickr: Photos from etchasketchist

Just wow! I could never get past geometric shapes on an Etch-a-Sketch. This person must have tons of patience.

Tags: technology, video games, apple inc, microsoft, security, iphone, silly

It's been a busy week in the world of indie Mac developers. Instead of creating several tiny links to these products, here's a quick look at some of the bigger releases in the past week:

Panic – Coda
From the site:

So, we code web sites by hand. And one day, it hit us: our web workflow was wonky. We’d have our text editor open, with Transmit open to save files to the server. We’d be previewing in Safari, running queries in Terminal, using a CSS editor, and reading references on the web. “This could be easier,” we realized. “And much cooler.”

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Coda is simply a one-stop solution for individuals who like to hand code their web sites. Right now, it's a bit over my head, but I'll keep revisiting it as my coding skills improve. John Gruber has some interesting thoughts on the product right here, and I was also pointed to this post on Upstart Blogger with thirty tips and tricks for Coda.

Coda is a very accessible application, and the UI is gorgeous. The price is a bit steep, though, at $99. However, Panic is offering Coda for $79 right now.

MacRabbit – CSSEdit 2.5
This is another product aimed at web developers, and it is specifically designed for editing CSS stylesheets. It is a very nice-lloking application. The feature-set is good, and the price of $30 is not bad at all for the functionality it offers.

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CSSEdit is especially handy for tracking downs specific elements you might want to change, and you can preview those changes live. This application just keeps continuing to impress me. I've had some experience manually tweaking CSS stylesheets, and this product is just fantastic for that.

Peter Borg – Smultron 3.0
Smultron is a free text editor that is aimed at beginning and advanced coders. It supports syntax coloring (for several different programming languages from .ASP to Fortran to Ruby to Lua), split window editing, line numbers, Java compiling, code validation, and may other advanced features. Is it as comprehensive as something like TextMate? I don't actually know, but it's pretty good, and the price can't be beat if it meets your needs.

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Rogue Amoeba – Fission 1.5
Like many great applicaitons, Fission is a very simple tool. It's aimed at editing and converting audio files losslessly. You can copy and paste audio files, split long files into shorter segments, cut unwanted sections, or tweak volume levels. The interface is clear and accessible, and, as an added bonus to Rogue Amoeba fans, the applications integrates tightly with Audio Hijack Pro.



Fission costs $32, but owners of Audio Hijack Pro 2 or higher are eligible to buy it for $18.

Freeverse – Periscope
Periscope is a utility from Freeverse software that is intended to make life with your webcam a little simpler and more fun. It allows you to set your webcam to capture images when certain criteria are met. You can add text, logos, or timestamps to the pictures taken, and the application makes it easy to share your photos via .Mac, email, Flickr, iPhoto, etc.



The only bone I have to pick with this application is that it is kind of ugly. It does not use standard OS X widgets, and the window behavior is ... odd. It just does not feel like an OS X app, and, for $30, it should. I don't think it offers enough functionality to justify the price tag, so a little more polish would go a long way in making that price easier to digest.

Acqualia – Picturesque
Picturesque is a very simple image editor aimed at dressing up your pictures for websites. It's opening interface is very reminiscent of AppZapper with the user dragging an image into the empty application window. Once you open an image, you can add shadow, glow, reflection, curved corners, or edges. A background color can be specified, and the image can be resized using a simple slider.



It's functionality is pretty limited, but it performs its purpose. I do have one little gripe though. Where can I specify what percentage of the actual size I'm viewing the image at. That seems like a setting I should be able to change. Picturesque is $20.

Acqualia – Soulver
Soulver is, in fact, pretty cool. The concept is simple but unique. Make a calculator that lets you enter equations as plain-English phrases. This allows you to think of math in more practical terms that we usually would using a standard calculator.



The problem is that the language you use has to be pretty specific (as the screenshot above illustrates), and this limits the real-world usefulness of this product. I especially had a hard time getting subtraction to function reliably. Still, it's a great concept, and I hope the developer keeps working on improvements. Soulver is $18.

I've probably missed more great software releases, but these hopefully provide some good highlights. Most of these are probably being overshadowed by the release of Coda, but if you are a Mac user in search of a few good downloads this weekend, there is some good stuff here.

Tags: macintosh, technology, software

Presentation Zen has a couple of good entries about faults surrounding PowerPoint and the option of avoiding the application (and those like it) entirely.

• David Byrne on PowerPoint: Freedom – who needs it?
• Is it finally time to ditch PowerPoint?

Daring Fireball has two posts regarding some facts about AAC and some of the recent misinformation spreading around regarding the audio format.

• Some Facts About AAC
• A Wee Bit More on AAC, Ogg, and MP3

Nobel Intent: Teachers and testing under scrutiny

I love the opening lines:

Education is a perennial political football. It is one of those lovely subjects where everyone feels that, since they went to school once, they have an equally valid view of "what is wrong with education today."

TUAW: More Leopard Delay Reaction

In case you didn't here, Leopard is experiencing a four-month release delay from June to October. My take is that the sky is not falling – not even close. Others disagree. TUAW's post here aggregates some sensible and entertaining views on the delay.

Tags: powerpoint, technology, education, leopard, drm, os x

CPUs: My Favorite Graphs...and the Future

It sounds like this could be the final post at Creating Passionate Users. I hope it isn't.



Shacknews: Half-Life 2, Doom 3 Assets in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.?

If this is true, it could spark a pretty nasty backlash from the hardcore gamer crowd as well as incite legal action from id Software and Valve.



WSJ: Using Even New PCs is Ruined by a Tangle of Trial Programs, Ads

Walt Mossberg rants about the amount of trial-ware, ads, and "special offers" that litters any new PC bought from a major vendor. He says such practices are a result of lack of respect for the consumer, and I agree. However, it's important to note that the consumer would be paying more for the computer without all of that advertising in place. It's like magazines. A bridal magazine that's 200 pages and 75% ads will cost much less than a 50 page psychology journal with no ad revenue.

This is yet one more way Dell, HP, and others sell computers at such low prices. I'm not convinced the tradeoff is worth it.



The Macalope: Run for Your Lives

The mythical Macalope reports on the recently reported iPod "virus" and its severe limitations. He christens it "The Lamest Virus Evah™!"



Human Computer Interaction in Science Fiction Movies

This paper takes a look at how science fiction movies speculate about how we will interact with technology in the future. Several movies are covered, and I especially liked the author's thoughts on Minority Report.

Tags: video games, technology, science, blogging, itunes/ipods

Way back in January, we picked up a shiny MacBook Pro to replace my aging PowerBook G3. I finally managed to get ahold of my wife's digital camera to take some quick pictures comparing the two laptops. The quality of these pictures is evidence as to why the wife doesn't let me touch cameras often...



First up, here we have the two laying right next to each other with lids closed. Even in its old age, the PowerBook has some nice curves going for it. By the way, if you look closely, you'll see that the MacBook Pro is facing the opposite direction! I made this mistake because...



... the PowerBook's logo is upside down when opened! Incidentally, my model of PowerBook was the last laptop Apple built with the "flipped" logo. Also, you can see that the PowerBook has a much taller screen, and the MacBook Pro's hinge is flush with the bottom of the computer.

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Stacked atop the MacBook Pro, the PowerBook exceeds the depth of the former but is not quite as wide. In the close-up of the hinges it's easy to see how much thinner the MacBook Pro is – only about as thick as the bottom portion of the PowerBook. (And the PowerBook is slimmer than many other laptops around!)

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The MacBook Pro's screen is much brighter and crisper, and the illuminated keyboard is great for working in low-light environments. Unfortunately, this picture doesn't quite show off the keyboard as much as I would have liked. Additionally, if these pictures were larger, you would be able to see damage on the PowerBook down by its smaller track-pad. (It took seven years for the case to finally begin to crack!)

That wraps up this picture post. The amazing thing about the PowerBook G3 is that I'm still using it to manage audio files for my music classes, programs, and choir. I wonder if my new MacBook Pro will still be useful that far down the line!

Tags: home, technology, macintosh

Both Ars Technica and TUAW are reporting that InputManager plugins will be disabled in Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.

from Ars:

"Apple isn't really broken up about it since InputManagers were often used for nefarious purposes anyway," our sources said, but the loss of InputManager control will break a lot of shareware and commercial software that currently makes use of that control. 

To tell you the truth, I've read about possible InputManager exploits, but I've never seen any "nefarious" plugins in the wild.

Now, in the original version of the Ars post (I wish I had a screenshot), there was speculation that this would break Unsanity haxies, but that info has been altered since then. Still, I thought I would shoot off an email to Unsanity and get a direct answer. Rosyna was kind enough to provide me with some answers, and I thought I'd share these with you here.

Q: You may not be able to answer this one, but can any of you confirm or deny rumors that InputManager plugins are broken in Leopard?

A: We cannot comment.

No surprises here!

Q: Whether or not the rumor is true, do you see the disabling of InputManager plugins as a good thing or a bad thing?

A: I couldn't say, honestly. If true, it'd cause a lot of useful software to be otherwise disabled.

Q: Would this impact APE in any way if it were true (hypothetically speaking)?

A: Why would it impact APE at all? APE has nothing whatsoever to do with InputManagers. Only two of our products (SCR, MEE) use Input Managers and both of them are quite free. Input Managers are cocoa only and are therefore not adequate for our needs.

At this point, my other questions were rendered moot. The short story is that APE is here to stay.

Of additional interest, the TUAW post has a comment with a questionable picture (comment #7) that refutes the total disabling of InputManager plugins, and an update at the bottom of the Ars post says this:

When you install Leopard, InputManagers are (currently) disabled by default, but they can be enabled when Leopard finds something of yours that uses an InputManager and presents you with a dialog box. You can currently enable them this way, but if you click "Disable" (which is the default option), they apparently go away for good. "That's what Apple says is the current behavior. They're not sure what the final behavior will be," says one developer. "Apple says they are deprecated, and in 'a future release' they will be disabled pernamently. They won't say if that release is 10.5.x or 10.6."

As far as InputManager-powered products go, I guess we'll just have to wait and see, but it does seem certain that APE modules will be completely unaffected by this, which is good news for me as well as many other Mac users!

Tags: software, technology, os x

Wii Living: Zelda: Ocarina of TIme Now Available on VC

Now just give me Majora's Mask, and you may see me trying to hunt a Wii down in the wild.


image from Wikipedia



Apple – iPhone – Hello

If you missed the iPhone ad during the Oscars, here it is available in four sizes.



Breitbart: Scholars Criticize New Jesus Documentary

In 1996, when the BBC aired a short documentary on the same subject, archaeologists challenged the claims. Amos Kloner, the first archaeologist to examine the site, said the idea fails to hold up by archaeological standards but makes for profitable television.

"They just want to get money for it," Kloner said.

Destructoid: Ode to the Extra Life

Where would we be today without extra lives? Follow the above link to a truly moving tribute to one of gaming's most taken-for-granted features.

Tags: video games, technology, religion, iphone, media

Freeverse: Think

This is a new (free) app from Freeverse that drops a plain background behind any app you choose thereby eliminating distraction while you work. The concept is not new, but Freeverse's implementation is well thought-out and worth trying.





Infinite Loop: Apple Inc. and Apple Corps come to new licensing agreement

"It is great to put this dispute behind us and move on," manager of Apple Corps Neil Aspinall said. "The years ahead are going to be very exciting times for us. We wish Apple Inc. every success and look forward to many years of peaceful co-operation with them."

So when will the Beatles end up on iTunes now?

Tags: software, technology, apple inc

CNN Money: Exxon linked to climate change pay out

Exxon: "Here's $10,000. Now go sow public confusion about climate change like a good boy."



The Politico: Gore to Testify on Climate Change

Gore will be testifying before two committees he has served on in the past regarding recent climate change. It's interesting that he is the only witness who will be testifying at this time. I wonder why there are not some more.



AppleInsider: Apple working on hot-unpluggable iPods

All I can say is this: It's about time! (Really, this whole mounting and unmounting of physical drives is so 80s!)



Adium

This Mac OS X chat client is great, and now it has (finally) reached 1.0 status!



Globe and Mail: Exxon's 'outlandish' earnings spark furor

Isn't this the second or third year in a row Exxon has posted record profits? They really aren't even trying to hide the exploitive greed anymore. They just attempt to justify it.



iClip 4

This is a very nice update to a small app I really like. It provides multiple clipboards that any application can access. If you are a Mac user, you should try iClip out. (Warning: this link is not Internet Explorer friendly.)

via TUAW



iConcertCal

This is an interesting hack of the iTunes visualizer. It retrieves information about upcoming concerts in your area based on artists in your iTunes collection. I have to admit that this is pretty neat (and that no one I like ever comes to Indy). The program is available for Mac + Windows.

via TUAW



CPUs: Let them do the thing everyone else tells them not to

This post fits in so well with my philosophy of education, and I love the image at the beginning!

Tags: environment, politics, technology, software, itunes/ipods

Viidelectrix

Homestar themed Flash games optimized for the Wii browser and the Wii remote. (They also work in browsers. Secret Collect is my favorite!)



AppleMatters Interviews the Macalope

The Macalope has become one of my favorite bloggers recently, and this interview is just classic. The only problem is that the interviewer tries to be as funny...



Ars Technica: Adobe announces pricing, availability for Lightroom

Ars Technica posts details about the official pricing and availability of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. It costs the same as Apple's Aperture, but the system requirements are not as steep. I wonder how it will actually perform on those lower-end supported machines.



Infinite Loop: OpenOffice.org (Aqua) needs you!

Ars blogs about the development of the Aqua version of OpenOffice. What I can't understand is why they don't put resources into helping the NeoOffice project rather than insisting on reinventing the wheel.



CPUs: Sensemaking 4: Summary of your comments

In this final post on making sense of complicated information, Dan Russell sorts through the numerous comments made about his posts and draws out some of the most helpful and interesting.

Tags: technology, silly, software, adobe

Presentation Zen: Love thy competitor! (And it wouldn't hurt to say nice things about them either)

I really like this post about how good it is to say positive things about your competition in public situations. I don't care if you're Steve Jobs or Steve Ballmer, taking too many jabs at the competition just gets tacky.



Ars Technica: iTunes DRM called out by France and Germany

...and the pressure is mounting...



CPUs: Sensemaking 1

Creating Passionate Users contributor Dan Russell is starting an interesting series on how we processes and make sense of complex information. Personally, when trying to make sense of something I am trying to absorb, instead of taking normal notes, I try to create a presentation on how I would relate this information to others. It's kind of geeky, but it works for me.



Ars Technica: Zune 2.0: The Empire Strikes Back

I'm interested to see what future updates for the Zune bring to the table. Case in point: think of an XBox. Now think of an XBox 360. Microsoft has shown that it is capable of learning from past mistakes and leapfrogging itself by a wide margin.

Tags: technology, itunes/ipods, drm, zune

Slate: The Autism Numbers: Why There's No Epidemic

This article nails a lot of good points. In the grand scheme of things, autism (and the spectrum disorders to a greater extent) is a relatively new diagnosis. However, the lack of diagnosis does not mean it didn't exist in previous centuries.



Macworld: Apple reports record-breaking $1 billion profit

That's a big number. Of course these record-breaking numbers sparked a drop in Apple's stock price. I'll never understand Wall Street.



Indexed

I really like this blog. You'll either get it, or you won't. Regardless, it's unique.



Ars Technica: Wireless power sparks interest at CES

This could be really great for absent-minded people like me who always forget to plug things in.

Tags: education, technology, apple inc, asd

We just purchased a new MacBook Pro today! I don't have any unboxing pictures, but I will post some comparison shots in a couple of days. In this post, take a look at the difference seven years makes. In the middle column resides the specifications and price of my PowerBook G3 back in 2000. The column on the right reflects my new MacBook Pro.

I have to admit that I will miss the possibility of using both bays for batteries, but that's a small price to pay. What I can't get over is how different the prices are. Even if I had bought a top-of-the-line MBP, the price would have been $700 less! I wonder where laptop prices will be when it's time to replace the MacBook Pro in a few years (hopefully fewer than seven).

Disclaimer: I did not pay full price for either machine. Also, my PowerBook G3 has been upgraded to 512 MB of memory and a 30 GB hard drive.

Tags: technology, macintosh

Ars Technica: Cisco sues Apple over iPhone trademark

Sigh. I told you iPod cellular was a better name.



Yahoo! News; Dell: PC Industry Needs to Go Green

This Plant a Tree for Me program is actually pretty cool.

Tags: technology, environment, iphone

The Macworld Keynote this morning was definitely an interesting one. The Mac seemed to be oddly absent in the presentation, and Steve Jobs really only focused on two products the entire time (though a third was updated today withoout fanfare).

Apple TV

The product formerly known as iTV made it's official public appearance. Baasically, this device acts as a bridge between the media on your computer and your TV. Of course, iTunes is at the center of this media ecology, but, for photos, Apple TV supports iPhoto on the Mac and Adobe Album and Photoshop Elements on Windows. The current model natively supports 480p and 720p TV resolutions. It has a built-in 40 GB hard drive, and it connects to the television using HDMI or componant cables. It can network with your home computer via ethernet or wireless network (including 802.11n).

The list of supported video formats is pretty limited (basically only anything iPod plays), but that shouldn't be too much of a problem if you use the device as intended. It's billed as an HD device, but it does scale down the content if hooked up to a standard TV. I imagine that, like iPod HiFi, Apple TV isn't going to be a runaway success, but it will carve itself out a healthy niche. It'll be interesting to see what future versions bring to the table. The Apple TV is available for $299.

Apple iPhone

I have to admit, after the Other iPhone came out, I was expecting something like "iPod cellular," but the name isn't the only surprise in the iPhone. The touch screen interface is just plain elegant in the demos, and it supports multi-touch input – a first for this kind of device. Also, the screen is crisp and clear, and the sensors which detect the device's orientation are a very nice touch.

The fact that this device is also the first to run a mobile version of OS X is also notable. It makes me wonder if Apple has any other devices in the "pipeline" that will make use of this slimmed down version of their operating system. The iPhone comes with 4GB or 8BG of internal flash memory, a 3.5" 320x480 screen, and it supports all modern wireless technologies (except 3G). The iPhone will be carried by Cingular and will carry a price-tag of $499 or $599.

Check out the official product page. The iPhone is beautiful, and I am not one to gush about cellular phones. I was seriously skeptical about this product, but Apple has really brought a unique offering into the crowded cell phone market.

The Undercover Updates

• Airport Extreme was updated today with a new form factor (think Apple TV) and support for 802.11n. I'm also pretty sure it's cheaper now at $179.
• Airport Express got a price drop. It's now $99.
• All Core 2 Duo Macs and the Mac Pros can take advantage of 802.11n. Via TUAW.

What Wasn't Announced

Where was the updated look at Leopard? I thought for sure we would get a tour of more new features and perhaps a new interface. iWork and iLife were totally neglected in this keynote, but these may get released alongside Leopard with some cool Leopard-only features to attract potential users. In fact the whole Mac part of this Macworld keynote seemed lacking. Okay, actually it was nonexistant. Regardless, I expect we'll be seeing some further announcements and product updates coming from the Mothership over the next few days and weeks.

Finally, as food for thought, did anyone else notice the Beatles albums in Steve Jobs' demos?

Tags: macintosh, technology, macworld, iphone

Cabel Sasser: Apple's Next-Generation Themes

Cabal Sasser blogs about Apple's patent for resolution independent interfaces and draws some interesting conclusions. He also posts some information about Apple's own theme creation tool.

via Daring Fireball



IntelliAdmin: The Progression of Vista Through Screenshots

This is a really simple but nice trip trough Vista's development from the first alpha release to the final shipping version. I like screenshots.



Ars Technica: IPTV on the XBox 360: Ars digs deep

This could become a big deal, and it could really help the XBox 360 gain even more momentum in the US market.



Nobel Intent: Even more ethical stem cells

I've always found myself torn on the issue of stem cell research. On the one hand, the investment can be unreasonable (potentially human life). On the other hand, the benefits of studying stem cells seems staggering. A new technique that recovers stem cells from amniotic fluid may succeed in dispelling much of the controversy around this research.

Tags: technology, microsoft, video games, science, leopard, os x

Infinite Loop: EPA information should make GreenPeace red-faced over Apple targeting

The EPA ranks Apple much higher in terms of eco-friendliness than GreenPeace does. Of course, the two groups could have completely different standards. I expect we'll hear a response from GreenPeace about this in a couple of days...

Tags: technology, environment, apple inc

I've heard about the project known as OpenOffice on many occasions as a viable alternative to Microsoft Office, and I was pleased to find a Macintosh version of the office suite on the project's website. What did not please me was the X11 requirement for the OS X version. Fortunately, it was not long before I discovered a project called NeoOffice written in a combination of Cocoa, Carbon, and Java. It's based on the OpenOffice 2.0 code base but runs natively in the OS X aqua environment.

Over the course of a few posts, I'm going to be looking at the text editor, NeoOffice Writer, and the presentation module, NeoOffice Impress, to see how they compare to Microsoft Word 2004 and Microsoft PowerPoint 2004 in daily use. These articles are not going to be deeply technical or philosophical. They are just going to reflect my thoughts and feelings as I take the software through some paces.

Current posts:
NeoOffice: Writer First Impressions • NeoOffice: Look + Feel • NeoOffice: Impress First Impressions
NeoOffice: The Rest of the Package • NeoOffice: Wish List • NeoOffice: Final Thoughts

The look-and-feel of applications is pretty important to the Mac experience. Well designed Macintosh applications have a polish to the user interface that is seldom present on other platforms. Therefore, if NeoOffice is going to gain a healthy following among the Mac-faithful, it is important that it have the Macintosh feel correct. This aspect may be somewhat abstract and trivial to alpha-geeks and power users, but the user experience cannot be ignored when developing an application for the Mac.

Saying this, how does NeoOffice do? Put simply, I've seen better, and I've seen worse – much worse.

Upon launch, I found the toolbars to be immediately distracting. The icons in them were spartan at best, and it really looked like a stereotypical open source project. Toolbars are nearly indispensable in office appications, so this was a difficult flaw to overlook.


The default toolbar appearance in NeoOffice Writer

Fortunately, it didn't take me long to figure out that you could change the toolbar's appearance within the preferences. Also a program called Iconic allowed me to install additional sets. Here are some variations for the toolbar:


The Industrial style


The Crystal style


The Akua style

The default style would be at home on Windows 95. Industrial looks very GNOME to me while Crystal makes me think of Windows XP. I bet you can guess which of these icon sets I'm using right now in NeoOffice. (Hint: It's phonetically identical to "aqua.") Fortunately, some small changes in the preferences can really lead to a more pleasant visual experience with NeoOffice.

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Before & After!

Unfortunately, even after some tweaking, a few elements still seem very out-of-place. Many small widgets in the interface lack the Aqua look-and-feel emulated by the rest of the program. Some text looks incorrectly placed in tabs, and the floating toolbars are boxy and Windows-esque (with the window controls on the wrong side of the toolbar).

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Another Aqua discrepancy I noticed was in the window controls of the main application. In most OS X applications, if you have unsaved changes in the documents, the red "close window" control has a dimple in it. Otherwise it is smooth as the other buttons. In NeoOffice, the red "close" button is smooth whether your document has unsaved changes or not.

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Pages shows the document has unsaved changes. NeoOffice does not.

Despite these shortcomings, NeoOffice does integrate well with Mac OS X in some key areas, including the print, save, and open dialog boxes/sheets. The application uses the standard controls for printing and saving that you would find in any native OS X application. This is a nice touch of familiarity in the application, and it keeps the user experience in these areas consistent with what you would expect for a Mac application.

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Here are some native dialogs in NeoOffice.

Overall, NeoOffice succeeds in almost feeling like a native Mac application, and, when compared to the X11 version of OpenOffice, that is a pretty impressive accomplishment. Some minor issues hold the product back from really creating an immersive Macintosh experience, but it is important to remember that this product is a work in progress. It is only consistently developed by three guys who are (for all intents and purposes) unfunded. NeoOffice 2 is the product of hard work and dedication. Yes, the interface has some inconsistencies and could use improvement, but it is a solid starting point.

In their wiki, the NeoOffice team states (regarding the use of Java): "If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, then to the end user it's a duck, and end users have made it pretty clear they want a duck; whether the duck drinks hot chocolate or coffee is irrelevant." Right now, I can tell that the duck is drinking coffee even without diving into the documentation. However, at this rate, it won't be long until NeoOffice can seamlessly blend in with my other Macintosh applications.

Tags: technology, software, neooffice

I've heard about the project known as OpenOffice on many occasions as a viable alternative to Microsoft Office, and I was pleased to find a Macintosh version of the office suite on the project's website. What did not please me was the X11 requirement for the OS X version. Fortunately, it was not long before I discovered a project called NeoOffice written in a combination of Cocoa, Carbon, and Java. It's based on the OpenOffice 2.0 code base but runs natively in the OS X aqua environment.

Over the course of a few posts, I'm going to be looking at the text editor, NeoOffice Writer, and the presentation module, NeoOffice Impress, to see how they compare to Microsoft Word 2004 and Microsoft PowerPoint 2004 in daily use. These articles are not going to be deeply technical or philosophical. They are just going to reflect my thoughts and feelings as I take the software through some paces.

Current posts:
NeoOffice: Writer First Impressions • NeoOffice: Look + Feel • NeoOffice: Impress First Impressions
NeoOffice: The Rest of the Package • NeoOffice: Wish List • NeoOffice: Final Thoughts

Upon launching NeoOffice, I was immediately greeted by a setup “wizard,” which immediately set within me a sense of foreboding. “Wizard” is not a very Mac-like term, but I went through the process, which, in and of itself was fairly painless. The only real nit to pick is that registering the product took me to a sign-in page for existing NeoOffice users – not a page to create a new account.



That aside, NeoOffice Writer looks a lot like MS Word for Windows. This is by no means a slight. It just means that Office users will feel right at home in the interface. On the other hand, it does look alien on the Mac desktop as even the Mac version of Word looks very different from its Windows counterpart.

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NeoOffice Writer on the left; Word on the right.

In terms of functionality, Writer has pretty much everything users have come to expect in a word processor. The only notable absence has been a built-in Grammar Check. On the other hand, NeoOffice seems to have some drawing tools, like curve, circle segment, and pie that are not present in Word. Also, NeoOffice has a built-in bibliography database available in the Tools menu. Unfortunately, I can't get it to format a bibliography automatically the way EndNote will in Word. Another good bit of news is that NeoOffice has extensive macro support – a feature that is scheduled to be eliminated from the next Mac version of Office.


Writer open with the database browser and macro dialog box.

As far as other features, Spell Check seems on par with Word, and you can right-click on a marked word for spelling suggestions – just like in the Microsoft alternative. In fact, you can do an awful lot with text formatting by right-clicking on it, something I think MS Word is definitely trailing the OpenOffice team on.



You can export a document as a PDF directly from the app, a task which is roundabout in Office 2004 for the Mac and nonexistent in Office 2003 for Windows. Included templates and clip art is minimal, but templates found here and clip art here work fine with the NeoOffice applications. Since I seldom use templates or clip art, this doesn't really bother me.

I opened a few MS Word documents with NeoOffice with varying results. Basic documents opened without a hitch. Many that contained drawings or shapes also opened fine, but the shapes would occasionally be in the wrong place. Some opened and could be edited while others opened as "read-only" and I had to "Save As..." to edit. Bullets points were consistently lost in the transition, but, surprisingly, most clip art and images survived the transition. Overall, the application's compatibility with Word documents is pretty good.

On the downsides, the look-and-feel (which I'll talk about more in another post) doesn't quite fit in with Mac OS X despite efforts to aquify the application, and performance is sluggish on my G5 PowerMac. This is especially true in redrawing elements like toolbars. On my PowerBook G3, the performance is downright dismal. I suspect the combination of PowerPC and Java elements is the culprit. On the other hand, there is an Intel build available, and I'll be interested in trying that out whenever I get around to updating my hardware.


Just waiting for the rest to show up...

In conclusion, I can see where NeoOffice could supplant MS Office for the budget-conscious. While it has some issues, it is very capable on its own and in working with Microsoft-compatible formats. Stay tuned for some more posts like these in the near future regarding NeoOffice!

Tags: technology, software, neooffice

Apple: Welcome to 2007

I hope the rest of the year is as cool as this splash on Apple's front page at the moment. I'm getting all hot-and-bothered about Macworld now.





Market Share: Browser Market Share for December 2006

Safari breaks 4% while IE dips below 80%. Can we please now stop the pundits saying things like "the Mac has only 2% market share?" Shouldn't Macs account for at least 4% based on Safari usage seeing that Safari is a Mac-only browser and all?



Dashboard Themes

This site is nice just in case you wanted to see what those themes on the XBox Live Marketplace look like. I really can't believe Microsoft doesn't have a way of previewing these in the online store...

Tags: technology, microsoft, browsers, apple inc

Usually, I would just stick something like this in my Links Blog, but this one actually makes me want to jump up on a soapbox.
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A new HP camera is actually being marketed with the idea that it can slim the subject of the photograph. Yes, friends, if you think your significant other is just too heavy looking in a shot on your vacation, no problem! Merely adjust a slider, and you can help him or her virtually shed unnecessary pounds! Here are some shots of it in action (straight off HP's site):





Now let's take some notes:

• The models on HP's site are only females – talk about gender stereotyping.
• The models look fine as they are. HP marketing is essentially saying healthy-looking women are in need of slimming, so you must be too.
• Can we talk about social pressures regarding anorexia at this point?

I may be a bit harsh here (which, you have to admit, is very unusual for me), but this whole concept is being promoted in a very irresponsible way. "You are not good enough. You look fat on film. Let us fix you." I can admit that, by and large, many Americans are overweight. Even I'm not as fit as I could be, but is this how we need to solve the problem? Are we so incapable of caring for ourselves that we need to artificially create better selves? I hope not.

Stuff like this just boggles me. All this really does is vertically stretch the entire picture, but it just makes me a little sick-to-the-stomach that somewhere another boardroom has made a decision that only further exploits weight insecurities (specifically in women) at both extremes. I no boycotter, but when we get a digital camera, I doubt it will be a HP right now.


Also, Jason Fried of 37 Signals has made a post about this "feature."

Tags: opinion, technology, software

This is going to be my last post fawning over the new iMac, I promise, but I wanted to elaborate on the iMac price versus the Dell XPS 410 price two posts ago. Here's a table of the exact specs I chose for the Dell when compared to the iMac. Please note that I've highlighted where one machine has a clear advantage over the other.



Some notes to finish up with: There are intangibles involved. For one, the included software on the Mac is certainly more diverse, but what comes on the Dell is pretty necessary. In fact, the lack of any permanent Office software on the iMac is a gaping hole. Also, I included power consumption because that does have an effect on one's electricity bill. Furthermore, I just like products that require less power. (As an aside, the wattage on the Dell does not take the monitor into consideration.)

To address some of the Mac's apparent shortcomings, on the Apple Store, I added Apple's USB modem, iWork (for text and slide editing), and a 256 MB nVidia GeForce 7600 GT, and the price came to $2,252 – only $14 more than the Dell.

Yes, you can still get cheaper computers than Macs, but when it comes to spec-by-spec comparisons, Apple's prices actually are competitive for what they offer. No, they still do not compete in the bargain-basement market, but the price-to-performance ratio is much definitely more attractive than it once was, and the iMac is a great example of that improvement.

Tags: macintosh, technology, dell

Yesterday's post about the iMac got me playing around, and I thought I would post a quick comparison of the iMac with other all-in-one desktop computers (and one "deskbook" computer) just to see how things shake out. This is not a comprehensive comparison, but it is kind of fun.

The Apple iMac

iMac comes in stock variations from $999 to $1999. Processors are Core 2 Duo across the board, 1.83 GHz up to 2.16 GHz. The base model has 512 MB DDR2 memory, and the others have 1 GB. Hard drive capacities run from 160 GB to 250 GB. The base model has an Intel GMA 950 video processor with 64 MB of shared memory; the middle models feature ATI Radeon X1600 cards with 128 MB, and the top model has an NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT with 128 MB. Except for the base model, all come with 8X CD/DVD burners. (Please note I am excluding BTO options.)

Every iMac comes with Mac OS X + Front Row, an Apple Remote (except the base model), an optical mouse, and a keyboard. Each is packaged with iLife and a variety of other software titles, and they all feature built-in Bluetooth (except the base model) and Airport (WiFi). Screen sizes come in 17, 20, and 24-inches.

Gateway Profile 6

The Gateway Profile comes in one stock configuration with several upgrade options. The stock Profile has a 3 GHz Pentium D processor and 512 MB DDR2 memory. It has a 160 GB hard drive. Graphics acceleration comes from an Intel GMA 950 with up to 224 MB shared memory, and it has a 16X CD/DVD burner.

The Profile ships with Windows XP Home, Office Basic 2003, Acrobat Reader, and six free months of AOL. It comes with an optical mouse and a keyboard. No wireless connectivity is built in, and it has a 17" screen. The Profile sells for $1,199. (Oh, and the Profile is really ugly.)

Sony Vaio LS1

Other than the iMac, the Vaio is probably the nicest looking machine in this post. The Vaio sports a 1.83 GHz Core Duo processor and 2 GB of DDR2 memory. It's hard drive is 250 GB, and its graphic acceleration is provided by an Intel GMA with 128 MB of shared memory. It also has an 8X CD/DVD burner.

The Vaio includes Widnows XP Media Center 2005 and a TV tuner. It comes with a wireless keyboard and mouse (RF), and it has 802.11g wireless networking. Software-wise, the Vaio comes with a lot of Sony's own digital creation software as well as Photoshop Elements and Premier Elements. It also comes loaded with trial-period software including MS Office and MS Works demos. The Vaio has a 19" screen and costs $2,099. There seem to be no BTO options.

Dell XPS M2010

I will be first to admit that this is not entirely fair, but it's the closest thing Dell has to an all-in-one, so I'm going with it. While technically a laptop (at 18 pounds!), it is considered a desktop replacement. The M2010, comes in three stock configurations with several BTO options. Those models all have 2 GHz Core 2 Duo processors with 1 GB - 2 GB of DDR2 memory. Each has an ATI Mobility X1800 with 256 MB and an 8X CD/DVD Burner.

The Dell comes with Windows XP Media Center 2005, some anti-virus software, and MS Works. It has an integrated keyboard, trackpad, and camera. It offers wireless networking, and each model has a 20" display. Prices range from $3,499 to $4,050.

Conclusion

When it comes to the all-in-one design, Apple seems to have set a bar that is difficult to match. The Sony here is the most compelling Windows alternative, but I can't help but be surprised how difficult it was to find other all-in-one computers. Really, the Dell doesn't count because it is a "laptop," so I could only track down two other currently available alternatives easily. When it comes down to it, Apple has defined all-in-one design with the iMac, and it's easy to see why that computer has become the machine most people define Apple by.

The new iMac is a competitive machine, and I hope people can get around their Mac-predjudices and give it a whirl. Even if you end up hating Mac OS X after a few months of ownership, remember Macs can now run Windows, and it's not like the iMac commands a premium over similar computers. I love all-in-one designs myself, and I was sad that I had to pass up the G4 iMac as my current desktop. (I ended up with a Rev A PowerMac G5 instead.) Fortunately, with the direction Apple is taking their consumer flagship, I have no doubts that I'll be able to return to my favorite Mac in the future.

Tags: macintosh, technology, dell

Pretty much out of left field (and on a Wednesday at that), Apple has announced a couple of upgrades to their product lines.


First up is the ever adorable Mac mini. The only real change here is that you can now choose between 1.66 GHZ or 1.83 GHz Core Duo (Yonah) processors. The previous generation had 1.5 GHz Core Solo and 1.66 GHz Core Duo respectively. Prices haven't changed, but Apple now offers a 160 GB hard drive as a BTO option. I guess that's all there is to say about the mini.


Here's the real upgrade of the day. The iMacs have moved from Core Duo (Yonah) to Core 2 Duo (Merom) chips, and Apple has added to the low and high ends of the iMac lineup.

At the entry level, we now have a $999 iMac that has a 1.83 GHz Core 2 Duo. The big sacrifices here come in the fact that the $999 model does not come with a remote (only a $29 add-on but still a bit of a bummer) and Intel integrated graphics. I think this machine is best suited toward someone thinking about a mini but can't BYODKM (Bring Your Own Display, Keyboard, & Mouse). For those who have been keeping track, yes, this is basically identical to the previously education-only model.

At the high end, we have a 2.16 GHz Core 2 Duo (upgradeable to 2.33 GHz) with a 24" screen. Even the rumor sites missed this one by one inch! (To their credit, the iMac does share screen resolution with the 23" Cinema Display.) Another improvement is the addition of an NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT graphics card with 128 MB (upgradable to a 7600 GT with 256 MB), and the new iMacs can hold up to 3 GB of memory and 500 GB of storage.

Now, for fun, here comes the interesting math. Take a Mac mini; spec it as close as you can to an iMac; add a 23" Cinema Display. What does it cost? $2,073, and the 24" iMac will still have better graphics and a larger hard drive. For more fun, a similarly equipped Dell XPS 410 with a 2.13 GHz Core 2 Duo processor is $2,238 (but it does have a faster optical drive and better video card to be fair). The 24" iMac is $1,999.

The Mac mini upgrade may be a simple step, but this iMac upgrade is very compelling – so much so that I could see it cannibalizing Mac Pro sales to some extent, but, honestly, the Mac Pro has moved to an entirely different tier of computing. As for me, I can't wait to get into an Apple Store to try one of these out!

Tags: technology, macintosh

Some pretty neat stuff came out of WWDC 2006's Stevenote today. I didn't get what I wanted to see (Merom-based MacBook Pros), but the announcements today made for a good show.

The Completed Transition

Apple's new workstation is a powerful machine. It contains two dual-core Xeon 5100 processors (a.k.a Woodcrest) in speeds of 2.0 GHz, 2.66 GHz, and (finally) 3.0 GHz with a 1.33 GHz frontside bus. It ships with 1 GB of memory, expandable to 16 GB, and 250 GB of internal storage, expandable to 2 TB. We have an NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT PCI Express graphics card with many upgrade options, and the the option to have dual optical drives.

On the education store, I was able to strip one down to $1,962 USD (not including a display). On the other end of the spectrum, if you go for all the bells and whistles, you'll be out over $11,000 UDS (still not including a display). From what I hear, the pre-configured $2,499 model is pretty competitive, but it is definitely out of my pricerange!

Along with the Mac Pro comes a Xeon-based XServe, making for a speedy update to Apple's server solutions.

The New Cat In Town

The Steve also had a sneak-peek at Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard on display. Many of the features demoed were far from Earth-shattering, but they do go towards making the Mac experience more fun for us veterans and more familiar to Windows converts. The updates to Mail, Dashboard, iCal, and iChat are evoutionary enhancements (except I think the backdrop thing in iChat is pretty cheesy).

The exciting stuff here is in Apple's implementation of virtual desktops, known as Spaces. I really didn't think this feature would be included. Sure, there are a few third-party solutions for virtual desktops, but, by and large, I doubt many people know what these are. Time Machine brings a much-needed backup utility to Mac OS X with the usual Apple flair, and Core Animation will make it a bit easier for developers to add some eye candy to their apps.

I can't say I'm excited about Leopard yet, but this was just a limited preview. In the future I'm sure we'll see resolution independence as well as a refined interface along with some features that aren't being talked about yet. Still, the Intel transition is complete. Leopard is progressing toward a Spring 2007 launch, and Apple is continuing to make being a Mac user an exciting experience.

Tags: macintosh, technology, wwdc, leopard, os x

Here it is – My new Nintendo DS Lite!



I wanted to get a DS back when they came out but could never justify the $150 for the little system – especially since Mario 64 was about the only game I would have wanted at the time. Eventually, however, some more titles came out, and the system became more and more attractive. Then, when an improved version came out for $20 dollars less than the original, I was sold. Fortunately, thanks to Animal Crossing: Wild World, my wife agreed.

Now, I have had a GameBoy advance for some time. In fact, my GBA harkens back to the days prior to backlit screens, so, needless to say, the DS Lite is quite an improvement in our portable gaming.



In the lovely picture above, the DS Lite is running, as you can probably tell, Metroid Prime: Hunters. Can you tell me, though, what game is playing on the GBA? If you said Metroid: Zero Mission, then you know me well because there is no way you can see what game is playing on that screen. As you can also see, the DS Lite is thinner than the GBA (even shut), and it is about the same height as a GBA when closed. Using only my hands, I can't really tell which is lighter.

Overall, the DS Lite is very compact, and I have carried it in a few different pockets with no annoyance. It is comfortable to hold. The touch-screen reacts well to the provided stylus, and I haven't successfully killed its battery yet, but I did recieve a low battery warning once after playing Animal Crossing off and on all day. Furthermore, the DS Lite looks like it would smudge very easily, but I have not found this to be the case, and what marks do show up on its shiny exterior are easily removed.



One slightly unfortunate side effect of the DS Lite's slimmer profile is that GBA cartridges inserted into the bottom slot stick out ever so slightly. Also, I am finding it annoyingly easy to accidentally press the shoulder buttons. These complaint, however, are very minor and do little to tarnish the experience I've had with this little console. The games we have (Animal Crossing: Wild World and Metroid Prime: Hunters) have been enjoyable. The screen is visible even in daylight, and closing the DS Lite puts the system to sleep just like a laptop. Open it up, and you can pick up exactly where you left off.

In parting, I'll leave you with one last wonder of the DS – the size of a DS card. The shot below has a GameBoy Color cartridge, Super Mario Bros. DX, a GBA cart, Metroid: Zero Mission, and a DS card, Metroid Prime: Hunters, all next to each other. Cool, huh? The DS card is about 1 inch wide and 1 1/4 inches tall!

Tags: video games, technology

Sheesh. How long has it been now since the MacBooks were released? Why haven't I posted about them yet? The truth is out there somewhere, and I think it lies in the land of laziness!

The Basics

The MacBook is a nice little machine. You can choose between a 1.83 GHz or a 2.0 GHz Intel Core Duo processor. Models ship with either a 60 BG or 80 GB hard drive, and you can custom order up to 120 GB. Each ships with 512 MB DDR2 SDRAM expandable to 2 GB. The base model has a Combo Drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW), and the others have a basic Super Drive (DVD±RW/CD-RW). The MacBook has a built-in iSight, a 13.3" widescreen display, the usual array of Apple ports, and Intel GMA 950 integrated graphics.

In addition to the computer itself, the MacBook comes with the snazzy little Front Row remote, the iLife suite of applications, a nifty program called Comic Life, Freeverse Big Bang Board Games, Photo Booth, and Omni Outliner.

Prices range from $1,099 to $1,499.

The Surprises

The base price of the MacBook is up $100 from the iBook which started at $999. However, even the base MacBook is a much more full-featured laptop than even the $1,499 iBook was. For those who like more display real estate. The resolution of the MacBook display is 1280 x 800 as opposed to the iBook's 1024 x 768. The horizontal pixel gain is quite noticeable. Furthermore, in the display department, the MacBook supports extended desktop mode up to 1920 x 1200 (or a 23" Apple Cinema Display) and lid-closed mode up to the same resolution. The iBook only supports video mirroring.

Another nice addition came in the form of an optical digital input/line in. The audio port that used to be reserved for PowerBook G4s when they came out has finally filtered through the whole line. The lack of any audio-in port on the iBook used to be a major factor in me never considering one as a potential replacement for my PowerBook G3.

Finally, there is no Core Solo version of the MacBook. Because the entry level Mac mini features a Core Solo processor, I think most figured the MacBook would have one as well. In the end, I'm glad that the Core Duo made it in to these machines. Other nice features include the magnetic latch and the included Sudden Motion Sensor Technology. (Ooh, and the Front Row remote works with Keynote presentations. I know because the lady at the Apple Store let me try!)

Oh yeah, and it can come in black.

The Sacrifices

Where are the cuts that keep these 'books from being the Pro models? First of all, there is the graphics card – or lack thereof. The MacBook sports an Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 950 with 64 MB of shared memory. Yes, this means the graphics chip siphons off of your system memory. The solution? Buy more RAM! Ordering a MacBook with 1 GB of memory instead of 512 MB only costs $90. Modern games will not perform well on a machine with integrated graphics, but the MacBook runs Keynote presentations as well as H.264 high definition movie files like a champ.

Problematic for few, the MacBook (like its Pro counterparts, iMac, and Mac mini) has dropped the internal modem. If you need a modem, Apple sells a $49 USB modem. It's not ideal, but it's not a deal-breaker either. The only other cutback I found is in the fact that no Mini-DVI to Anything adapter is included, meaning presenters will have to spring for a $20 adapter before hooking their MacBook up to an external display. Really, at $20, Apple could have at least tossed in a Mini-DVI to VGA adapter.

Hands-On

I made a quick visit to our local Apple Store to give one of these a spin, and my first impressions were quite good. Launching applications and resizing windows felt snappy. Various H.264 QuickTime movies played very smoothly (and this is a file format that gives me headaches on my PowerMac from time to time). Photo Booth is a fun little application. Finally, Keynote, an extremely important application to me, worked smoothly and flawlessly.

From a hardware point of view, I still prefer the classic white model over the more expensive black design. The magnetic latch works well, and the MagSafe power cord functions exactly as expected. The redesigned keyboard is firm and responsive, and the scrolling track-pad is neat. I especially like the functionality that allows you to use the track-pad for both left- and right-clicking. Furthermore, the glossy display is fine. The colors are crisp, and there was hardly any glare on the screen in the Apple Store (which is a very brightly lit environment).

Conclusion

Overall, I am impressed with MacBook. Apple has done a nice job of balancing form and function as well as features and price. It's a very unique product in its own way, and I'm glad for the improvements Apple has made over the iBook line.

For more reading, see Ars Techica's review of the MacBook (9/10), Time Magazine (Gadget of the Week), PC World's review (4/5), and MacWorld's review (4.5/5).

Tags: technology, macintosh

Okay, seriously, in case you have been living under a rock lately, Apple has become much more competitive in their product prices since the switch to Intel processors (Mac mini notwithstanding). Although it may be an extreme example, this computer reviewed on C|Net is a great example of that.

Dell XPSM2010
Processor: 1.83 GHz Intel Core Duo
RAM: 1 GB
Display 20.1" 1680 x 1050
Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon X1800 256 MB
Hard Drive: 80 GB
Optical Drive: DVD-ROM DVD±RW
Weight: 18.3 pounds
Price: USD $3500

Apple MacBook Pro
Processor: 2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo
RAM: 1 GB
Display: 17" 1680 x 1050
Graphics: ATI Mobility Radeon X1600 256 MB
Hard Drive: 120 GB
Optical Drive: DVD±RW (Dual-Layer)
Weight: 6.8 pounds
Price: USD $2800

Note that the MacBook Pro, while sporting a slightly smaller display, uses the same resolution – producing a crisper image. Furthermore, Apple's laptop has a faster processor and more storage as well. Really, the only advantage this Dell has is in its graphics card. Atop these advantages, the MacBook Pro has other features such as a sudden-motion sensor for the hard drive, a magnetic power cord, and a backlit keyboard, not to mention that the Dell seems to be missing any burning capabilities. Correction: It has a DVD burner – just not dual-layer.

If I go to Dell's store and custom order the XPS with the same hard drive size and processor speed as the MacBook Pro, its price raises to USD $3925! I'll concede that you can get laptops cheaper than anything Apple has to offer, but, if you are looking for a machine with comparable specs and design, Apple's prices suddenly become very competitive.

Tags: macintosh, technology, dell

The following post is completely unreliable speculation based on the fact that I've been wanting to use the name "MacBook mini" in a sentence for some time now:

Some predict the processor in this machine will end up in the upcoming Macbook (successor to the iBook). I disagree. I say this processor will be in the MacBook mini. 11"-widescreen TFT, 1.2 GHz ULV Core Solo, 512 MB DDR memory, 60 GB hard drive, Combo Drive, Intel Integrated Graphics, $999 USD. A tablet version will be available for $1,299 USD. (Oh, and the enclosure will resemble the finish of the iPod nano!)

Oh, yeah. You heard it here first. (Initiate Emperor's New Groove-style dance.)

Tags: silly, technology

I used to be a Mac-hater – honestly. I remember thinking of the Mac as a "toy" that couldn't run most programs, nor would my files be compatible with it because it couldn't run Windows 95, which was, to me, the pinnacle of all things computing at the time. Please understand, I was in my teens at time, and Apple was in its darkest hours. All Apple press was bad press. Yes, I was a teen in the 90s.

I remember seeing this poster my freshman year of college and thinking,"How lame. That has to be about the most hideous computer I've ever seen."



Then I took a long hard look at my IBM Aptiva. It was no looker either. In fact, it took up a whole lot more desk space than that iMac would. Furthermore, I began using the Macs on campus more and more. I even found myself beginning to make excuses to use the lab PowerMac G3s (not the blue & whites) rather than my home machine. I began messing with the iMacs on display at CompUSA, and the pretty colors of the revised iMacs became all the more mesmerizing.

Finally, in 2000 I got my first Mac: a graphite iMac with a 400 MHz G3 processor. A G3 PowerBook soon followed and became home to all my college assignments. (In retrospect, I could have probably made due with only the PowerBook, but my limited computer knowledge of the time never suggested that a laptop could have replaced a desktop.)

Even after a couple months of experience on the machines, I have to admit I was not necessarily completely sold on being a repeat customer. Mac OS 9 was fun and all, but it didn't give me anything Windows 9x really lacked – well, other than not being completely hideous, a problem that plagues Windows to this day. However, I became sold the minute I got my hands on the Public Beta of Mac OS X. My iMac would not transition until Jaguar, but my PowerBook has been an OS X machine from the moment the Public Beta hit my doorstep.

Since then, I have used every release of Mac OS X. I am an iLife and an iWork junkie, and I am currently the proud owner of A PowerMac G5 (1.8 GHz SP, 900 MHz FSB). Surprisingly enough, the G3 PowerBook I mention in recent posts is that same G3 from 6 years ago, and that 6-year-old iMac? It currently resides with my wife's grandparents as their web browsing and email machine, and it probably still has some life left in it. The iMac is running OS X 10.3.9, and the PBG3 is running OS X 10.4.5. I wonder how many 6-year-old PCs are running XP SP2?

So will my next computer be a Mac? Do you really have to ask? My laptop is in bad need of replacement (as I've done everything in my power to run it onto the ground), and I've even resorted to packing my G5 up when giving important presentations. I just can't seem to trust my old PBG3 to make through an intensive Keynote slideshow anymore – something about the app requiring a G4 processor. Needless to say, the new Core Duo MacBook Pro is looking very attractive indeed.

Apple is turning 30, and I've been a Mac user for one-fifth of that time. Here's to many more years of "insanely great" products that dare to "think different."

Tags: technology

Okay, so here are the (slightly truncated) system requirements for Office 2004 and iLife '06, respectively.

Office 2004

• Processor: G3 (Mac OS X compatible) or higher
• OS: Mac OS X 10.2.8+
• Memory 256 MB

iLife '06

• Processor: 500MHz G4 or faster, G5, or Core processor
• OS: Mac OS X 10.3.9 or 10.4.3+
• Memory: 256 MB (512 MB recommended)
• Video: 32 MB

So, my PowerBook has a 500 MHz G3 processor, Mac OS X 10.4.5, 512 MB RAM, and an 8 MB video card. For a recent slideshow I created to help my kids memorize words to their program songs, which application do you think ran more smoothly – PowerPoint 2004 (from Office 2004) or Keynote 3 (form iLife '06)?

If you guessed PowerPoint, you are WRONG.

As long as I used simple transitions, such as appear or dissolve, Keynote transitioned between slides much more smoothly than PowerPoint. We're talking multiple second delays in PowerPoint whenever I would tap the spacebar to change slides while Keynote was near instantaneous. (Again, I had to watch what I was doing.) Even when editing the slides, Keynote felt slightly snappier.

Look back at the system requirements now. My machine doesn't even meet iLife's base specifications while it exceeds Office's! Try to figure that one out...

Tags: macintosh, technology

... To post about Tuesday's Apple media event.

To put is succinctly, Apple's announcements were, in the words of Steve Jobs, "medium-scale." There is nothing terribly exciting here, nor did the Steve, who appears much more subdued and laid-back in this presentation, make any pretense that the products announced were much more than evolutionary steps of the Apple product matrix.

The iPod Hi-Fi

Mr. Jobs probably put the most emphasis on this product, mainly because this is the only completely new product introduced Tuesday. In truth, despite my musical background, currently I know little about frequencies. All I know is that my music, from Dave Matthews Band to the Beatles to Mahler to Glass, all sounds fine in iTunes, so it would probably sound dandy with these speakers. I imagine this is a nice accessory, but at $350, it's a bit pricey – and that's coming from a die-hard Mac fan.

Regardless, it does fit the Mac aesthetic quite well. The fact that it works with the Apple Remote is welcome. Also, it does feature audio-in, possibly placing it in a position to be an add-on for someone wanting to get a Mac mini as a media center.

Intel Mac mini

I like the Mac mini. It's cute and functional, but I'll probably never own one myself. (However, I wouldn't mind pairing one up with a Smart Board in my classroom!) This Mac mini boasts some new features, most notably two extra USB ports, built-in Bluetooth and Airport, Gigabit Ethernet, a SATA hard drive, and Front Row/Apple Remote support. The downsides are a $100 price hike and an integrated video processor which will eat off system memory. Of course, buying more RAM when you order will alleviate this problem.

On the whole integrated graphics issue: first, there appears to be little room for a dedicated graphics card in this thing. Since Apple seems to be pretty strict about maintaining form factors lately, integrated graphics may have been the only option. Furthermore, it seems that this is still a significant upgrade to the G4 mini's graphics system despite the fact it isn't exactly geared toward high-end gaming. I'm interested to mess with one of these in our local Apple Store.

I imagine we'll see some new products in a few more weeks as April draws close. I'm personally hoping for some revved iBooks. (The MacBook Pro is way out of my league.) However, I do hope future iBooks – or will they be MacBooks? – do have a dedicated video card and not some integrated system.

Tags: macintosh, technology

On an initial side note, I was planning on sticking something like this on my site (being a good Mac citizen and all), but the great site MacInTouch has beaten me to the punch. MacInTouch is a great first resource if you are experiencing technical difficulties with your Mac.

Speaking of technical difficulties, you know that presentation coming up this Friday? Well, early on in development, I realized my G3 PowerBook was not up to the task of running a Keynote presentation and demoing the iLife software in a manner that looked anything less than excruciating. Enter Dad's iBook – not an ideal machine for this job but better than the alternative.

The first order of business was putting in more RAM. It had 256MB, which, as any Mac OS X user will tell you, is less than you want to have. The first idea was to get another 256 MB module to bump up to 512 MB. The only problem was that no one around here seems to stock 256 MB RAM modules anymore, so we had to go with a 512 MB module, giving my father a grand total of 768 MB. Dandy.

With that out of the way, I was using his iBook at church to take notes when the screen began to freak out on me. Sometimes it would just die; other times, colored gibberish would streak around until it died. However, if we played around with the hinge, the picture might come back. Did I mention that this problem cropped up on Sunday – six days before the presentation?

Fast forward to Monday. It's apparent that this is a serious problem, so my wonderful wife trucks the iBook over to our local Apple Store (who treated her like an idiot, but that is another post for another day). The iBook has to be sent away to be worked on and won't be back for AT LEAST five days. Fortunately, my wife asked a question that would have never dawned on me: "Can we rent out a laptop?"

Thanks to her quick thinking, I have a G4 PowerBook to deliver the presentation with. Still, the Apple Store failed to throw in an ADC to VGA display adapter, but I fortunately have one because my G5 tower came with one. Let's just pray nothing else goes wrong between now and Friday.

Saturday, I'll write up a postmortem on how the presentation as a whole went.

Tags: work, technology

Well, perhaps that is an overstatement, but I can't remember feeling so giddy during a SteveNote presentation since the PowerMac G5s were unveiled at WWDC 2003 (and I tend to get slightly giddy during any presentation given by Steve Jobs).

First, I like the iLife and iWork updates. Sure, there is still no dedicated spreadsheet application in iWork, but the additions to Pages and Keynote look great. As far as iLife goes, iPhoto has me the most interested, though the enhancements to the other apps – particularly iMovie and iDVD – will be welcome, especially since I haven't updated iLife for two years now.

The new Intel iMac is cool. I like the current form factor, so retaining it wasn't a bad thing. However, it would be nice if there was some way of distinguishing it from the PowerPC iMac other than the specs on the box. Regardless, it seems to be getting quite the performance boost for no more cost. No complaints from this gallery.

What really floored me was this:



Say hello to the MacBook Pro. Alright, so no points for the name, but a hundred points for the computer itself. Don't get me wrong, I fell in love with the PowerBook G4 long ago, but this thing just stole my geeky heart. 1.67 or 1.83 GHz Intel Duo processor, 667 MHz frontside bus (as compared to 167 MHz on the G4), Mobility Radeon X 1600, optical audio, dual-layer DVD burning, built-in iSight, backlit keyboard – I could go on and on.

It's everything the PowerBook was plus one important factor: Power.

Questionably, Apple has removed the FireWire 800 port, which strikes me as odd, and, according to this Infinite Loop post, battery life is somewhat disappointing. It is worth noting, though, that these machines do not ship until February, and progress could be made on the battery front between now and then.

Regardless of these apparent shortcomings, there is little to complain about here. This is one nice laptop, and it is easily the most competitive laptop Apple has released in a while. Sure, a Dell would be still cheaper, but it just wouldn't be a Mac. Congratulations, Apple, the Intel transition is underway. Here's to hoping the next several months go smoothly!

Tags: macintosh, technology, macworld

Screenshots of a new build of Windows Vista (formerly known as Windows Longhorn) appeared on Paul Thurrott's SuperSite for Windows a few days ago. Being the desktop voyeur I am, I couldn't help but pop over and ogle the screens for a while. For reference, here are links to his screenshots: Installation; Desktop, My Computer, and Network; Control Panel and Aero Glass Customization; and Applications.

Once I started to delve into the screenshots a couple of things struck me.

• Translucency and text can work. If you look at the screens, you will notice that translucency is subdued behind areas that need text, like the Start Menu and location and search fields. In the case of window contents, translucency is completely eliminated, and that looks almost out of place in Vista. Translucent elements are prevalent in Vista, but they are implemented in a fairly nice manner.
  
  
• What did they do to the Start Menu? The Start Menu has been receiving tweaks pretty much since its first appearance. Now they have removed "Start" from the icon that activates the window, and have made the icon into a sphere that awkwardly protrudes from the task bar. This protrusion carries over to the user icon atop the Star Menu (when active). The user icon proudly protrudes from the top of the menu like some royal crest. Let's hope they kill this whole icon protrusion thing before people come to accept it.
  
  
• Outlook Express has become Windows Mail. Alright, call this Apple copying if you must, but I feel the name change is logical and welcome. "Outlook Express" tells you nothing of the application's function unless you use Outlook in your workplace. "Windows Mail" is a much more user-friendly name, and it's nice to see this change.

Overall, Windows Vista seems to be coming along well. Installation is still an ugly process (visually), but I'm sure that will be cleaned up before the public release. After all, installation gives users the first impression of your system. I can't say I've ever been a fan of Microsoft's default user interface for any of its versions of Windows. (I was a user back in the days of Windows 95 and Windows 98.) However, Vista seems to be gaining a nice sheen previously absent from Windows.
x
Unfortunately, my mind keeps going back to Whistler. This was a nice evolution of the Windows interface that eventually transformed into the eyesore that is Windows XP. (Oddly enough, both Mac and Windows themers have created themes based on this visual style that never made it into a publicly available version of Windows.) Hopefully, Microsoft will keep these nice touches that are present in current builds of Vista and refine them rather than pulling out something completely different at the last minute. Windows XP is not nice to look at. Vista is, and I hope it stays that way.

Tags: microsoft, technology, software, opinion

The first order of business is to wish my wonderful wife a very happy birthday!!!

I know I'm a bit late posting about the latest Apple media event. There's really not much to say. I can't comment on Aperture because that application is way out of my league. However, I do think it's interesting that Apple is trying to distance it from Photoshop as much as possible. As far as I can tell, the two applications have little in common. I imagine many people who invest a great deal of time in one will also find the other valuable. If you are curious for more info on Aperture, visit Apple's product page. It's a neat looking web page.

PowerMacs

My 1.8 GHz PowerMac G5 looks positively anemic next to these beasts. Like the iMac, we have moved to DDR2 SDRAM, though the PowerMacs remained at the same 533 MHz memory the iMac has instead of being bumped to 667 MHz. Sometimes I think Apple is going all conservative on me. In addition to the new memory, the PowerMac has adopted PCI-Express as well as some serious graphics cards, including (finally) a professional level card with the NVIDIA Quadro FX 4500. The dual ethernet ports are also worthy of note for anyone wishing to turn a PowerMac into a server.

The big news, of course, is dual-core. Some early reports are indicating that the dual-core 2.3 GHz model is slightly faster than the previous generation dual processor 2.5 GHz machine. (The previous machine had two single-core processors in it.) I'm sure the many variables listed above were also contributors to this performance gain, but it is promising. I was perplexed when I saw the "new" machines were running at a slower clock-speed than the previous generation, but it seems the machines still have quite a boost in performance. (Incidentally, this is not the first time a "MHz regression" has occurred. According to MacTracker, the final G3 PowerBooks were running at 500 MHz, but the first G4 PowerBooks came out at 400 MHz.)

In all, the new PowerMacs are a very strong lineup. If Apple's claims are true about performance gains, then Macintosh-based professionals may want to snatch one of these up before "the Switch" if their current machine is growing long-in-the-tooth.

PowerBooks

Um, were these updated? Seriously, I like the new screen resolutions. Hopefully, the future onset of resolution independent user interfaces will allow them to pack the pixels even denser in the future. The product line has also been simplified. All PowerBooks have DVD-burners, but only the two larger models get dual-layer burning. Both larger models have 128 MB dedicated graphics memory, backlit keyboard, and optical audio. Truthfully, the 15-inch model seems to offer the best value, especially at my educator discount.

Are these updates exciting? No. Did I expect more? A little bit. Regardless, my PowerBook G3 has seen better days, so I might be trying to justify getting the 15-inch model. We'll see... I feel myself being swayed by Apple's beautiful product pictures...

Tags: macintosh, technology

Apple's media event on October 12 was something else. A new generation of iPods, a revision to the iTunes Music Store to support video purchases, and a revised iMac made for quite the event.

iMac Media Edition

My first impression: "Wow. It looks even sleeker!" I have been in love with the iMac G5 since it was introduced, and this package is just great. The processors are 1.9 GHz and 2.1 GHz for the 17" and the 20" models respectively. These machines are the first in Apple's lineup to support DDR2 SDRAM and PCI - Express graphics. This provides a clear indicator of the direction Apple will be taking with the future Intel - based Macintosh computers. I'm interested in seeing how the Radeon X600 XT (in the 20") performs, but, in all, the new iMac should completely smoke my current PowerMac G5.

The integrated iSight with PhotoBooth is cute. I imagine PhotoBooth will ship with all new iSights once those are revamped. (According to Steve Jobs, the iSight in the new iMac is somewhat better than the iSight you can buy off the shelf.) It's a cute add - on, but it's nothing that would sway me as a consumer one way or the other. Still, PhotoBooth does stand out as another app that shows off the versatility of Apple's Core Image technology.

Front Row is very intriguing. Now please take notice, Front Row is the name for the media software, not the remote itself (which is available as a separate purchase for use with iPods). Front Row seems superficially inspired by Windows Media Center Edition, but I won't be drawing too many comparisons as I've had little to no "hands - on" experience with either product. As far as Front Row goes, I was impressed with how seamlessly it integrates with the core operating system. I liked the simplistic interface and the simple remote. This stuff has great potential.

How do I rate the new iMac? Let me put it this way: I need a new Apple laptop, but I want one of these iMacs.

It's True!

So here is the much anticipated iPod Video. I like that it is just called iPod. For a while, the iPod line was getting too confusing, but now it's pretty simple again. Simply put, this is an iPod first and a video player second. The screen, though larger than the previous iPods, is still pretty small, and battery life with video playback is pretty abysmal. Still, it's a first step that's bound to gain momentum with time.

iPod nanos and iPods now mach as far as styling goes. The new iPod is even offered in black (which i am the only person on Earth who thinks this thing looks terrible in black). Even the Shuffle fits in visually, but one could easily be confused for the new remote Apple is bundling with the iMacs. The new iPods are somewhat thinner than their predecessors, but the sacrifice is loss of FireWire support. We should have seen that coming a mile away, but it's still a little disappointing.

Personally, I feel no motivation to purchase one of these as a video device. Although I might investigate how well one might handle an interactive QuickTime movie. As a potential first-time iPod buyer, though, these are make a compelling upgrade to the previous generation, and I may beg for one of these come Christmas instead of a Nano.

Video in iTunes

Of course, this is just amazing – not so much as it is now as much as what it could become. Right now, you pay $2 USD for a low - resolution video of a music video, Pixar short, or ABC/Disney television episode. However, this has amazing potential. First, there's the whole deal that you can download the most recent episode of a show they sell the next day after broadcast. Second, there is a serious potential to revolutionize media distribution should we see higher resolutions and more content creep in over time. Right now, the video component of iTunes is pretty bare bones, but the potential present is amazing. Remember how small the iTunes Music Store started out? I'm no TV fan, but it will be interesting to watch this grow.

Conclusion

I'm personally most excited about the new iMac. That machine is just great, hands down. I like the new iPod, but the video aspect bears no weight in my like or dislike of the product. It's just a cooler, higher capacity iPod to me. Video is just some nice icing on the cake, but that's okay to think. After all, at least a couple of times in his speech, Steve Jobs referred to the video functionality as a "bonus." Video in the iTunes Music Store has amazing potential, but it will take time to be realized. This is only the beginning for legal online video distribution.

Most intriguing product? Front Row. Where is Apple going with this? Where can they go with it? Right now, it is tied to the iMac, but the key there is right now. "At this time, its only on the iMac," Apple's Greg Joswiak said in a MacWorld interview. Front Row may eventually become a standalone product, or it may eventually be integrated with all copies of Mac OS X. With this new media center software, will we be seeing Macs with TV - tuner capabilities in the future? Will these changes affect the features built into Apple's displays? Only time will tell.

Tags: macintosh, technology

Lately, I have been playing around with the demo for Sibelius 4. For those of you who don't know what this is, Sibelius is a music application that can be used to notate, print, and play music. (It can actually do quite a bit more, but this is not an in-depth review.) Very simply put, a program like Sibelius is to music notation as MS Word is to word processing.

I have been a Sibelius user for quite some time now. I used to swear by Finale, but it took Coda Music Technologies (now MakeMusic Inc.) so long aggravatingly long to release a Mac OS X native version of Finale that I jumped ship after playing around with a demo of Sibelius 2 under OS X. Now I am using Sibelius 3 for my daily music notation needs, so the announcement of version 4 quite naturally caught my eye.

From the onset, Sibelius 4 behaves more like a Mac OS X application than its predecessors. Instead of being an app in a folder with a bunch of other files it requires to operate, Sibelius 4 is a "package." Also, Sibelius 4 uses Mac OS X standard directories for filing specialized information.

Once the application launches, there are many small refinements and touches that instantly distinguish this version. The main toolbar is smaller and less gaudy. More useful commands are in that toolbar, and floating windows support transparency effects (like the Formatting Palette in Microsoft Office 2004 for Mac OS X.)

Good Experiences

Dragging symbols and articulations around feels generally snappier. The Worksheet Creator is great and will save me a lot of time in the future. The Preferences dialogue box is much better than the one(s) in Sibelius 3. I like having the option to activate and deactivate floating windows from the toolbar, and the Mixer seems more responsive and less buggy than in Sibelius 3. Furthermore, the new ability to copy & paste into a word processor works as documented for the demo. It pasted fine into Word and into Pages, but it looked horrible. I can't complain, though, because it's a documented limitation of the demo.

Next up is Dynamic Parts. One word: Wow. Now here come several more words. In the past, once a score is completed, you would have to "extract" the individual parts. This is time consuming, and changes you make in the score later are not reflected in any parts you've already extracted. Dynamic Parts changes this. As a score is being written, you can choose any part from a menu n the toolbar, and it instantly appears on screen. Any changes you make within that part are simultaneously reflected in the score and vice versa. This could potentially be a huge time saver.

Another neat aspect of Dynamic Parts is the fact that you can pull up all the parts in one dialogue, set the number of copies needed of each part, and have them all print out in a tidy little package. While this feature can't be completely tested in the demo, it is functional enough to give you a good idea of how it will work.

Finally comes the much hyped video capabilities in Sibelius 4. Basically, you can have a movie open that you might be writing music for, and you can see exactly how the music lines up with the video. This would have been so great to have when I was working on our fifth grade "Virtual Scrapbook" DVD. I'm just beginning to figure this feature out, but I am seriously liking what I am seeing.

Iffy Experiences

Overall, the demo of Sibelius 4 is very good, and I am going to have to get pretty nit-picky here. (I love it when software is so good that I have to look for the flaws.)

First, there are a couple of visual bugs in the toolbar. The menus for Dynamic Parts and Page Zoom don't blend well with the toolbar, and the arrows to drop the menus down seem to be a few pixels off. Just as minor, launching the application seems to be slower than in Sibelius 3, but I'll write both of these off as quirks of pre-release software.

I'm not sure what I think of the playback controls being in their own floating window rather than in the main toolbar. It seems like unnecessary clutter. Also, in Sibelius 3, playback would begin from the last note you clicked on. Now you have to drag a slider to the point you want playback to begin at. This can be a real nuisance when working with long scores because the slider likes to reset at the beginning quite often.

As far as the keypad goes, it remains pretty much unchanged, but I would like to see it gain some flexibility. First, it would be nice if a tuplet section was added, so triplets, sextuplets, and the like could be controlled from the keypad. Also, a nice feature would be if the sections could be viewed simultaneously as expandable and collapsable sections. Again, I am thinking of something like the Formatting Palette in the Mac version of Office.

Expanding from that topic, many commonly used features, such as dynamic markings, tempos, clefs, and the like are buried in menus. While not suggesting that Sibelius gain the same visual clutter as Finale 2004, it would be interesting to see if they could include some kind of customizable toolbar in future versions of Sibelius where someone could keep commands they frequently use.

Finally, Finale has upped the ante on high quality audio samples by including 100+ sounds form Garritan Personal Orchestra in Finale 2006. Sibelius offers 100+ sounds with Kontakt Player Silver, but the real difference comes with the pitched instruments (instruments that can play a melody). Sibelius comes with 19 high quality pitched instruments. On the other hand, Finale 2006 will come with about 50 Garritan pitched instruments. To me, that seems like a point of competition which needs addressing.

The Unknown

There are some things about Sibelius that are still unknown. I've had some pretty weird bugs pop up when exporting to audio in Sibelius 3 from time to time, and I hope those are resolved in Sibelius 4, but that feature is unavailable in the demo. Also, as I understand it, Sibelius 4 will pre-load any sound libraries selected to eliminate the lag that exists when inputting notes or playing back a score for the first time. While this is sure to have benefits, I wonder this will affect Sibelius memory footprint. These questions won't be resolved until i can get my hands of a shipping copy, though.

Conclusion

Sibelius 4 is shaping up to be a very strong release. It retains the clean interface of Sibelius but almost to a fault. Again, the fact that many common items are buried in menus and dialogue boxes can be daunting to a user until they become well-versed in all of the keyboard commands. However, the benefits of Sibelius easily outweigh such small quarrels.

The only real point of contention I have with Sibelius is Kontakt Player Silver. In its current state, the high quality GPO sounds included with Finale 2006 soundly trump what is included with Sibelius, and I'm growing more of the opinion that Kontakt Player Gold should not be a separate $150 purchase, especially when comparing the lists of instruments included in Kontakt Player Gold and those included with Finale 2006.

As I said, though, Sibelius 4 has some strong features, but Sibelius needs to continue to innovate and provide value. Much of Sibelius' current Macintosh user base is probably a result of Finale ceasing to be a value for several years. Now that they have that base, they need to work to keep it.

Tags: software, technology, opinion, sibelius

Journals.ars has an entry posted in the M-Dollar section with screenshots of Longhorn Build 5203. For those of you unfamiliar with what I'm talking about, Longhorn is the code name for the next iteration of Microsoft Windows that is set to replace WindowsXP. Currently, Longhorn (or whatever it will be called) is set for release in late 2006, but some sources claim that the date will probably slip to early 2007. Being the geek that I am, I couldn't help but check the images out. Even though I'm a pretty die-hard Mac user, I still love ogling screenshots, especially desktops of any yet-to-be-released operating system (OS).

I can't comment on things like functionality or performance of this build. I personally haven't had the opportunity to play around with any Longhorn builds, so anything I say on those matters would be uninformed speculation. Therefore, these comments will be limited to the appearance of the Longhorn interface in this build. Please note that these comments may quickly become out of date seeing that this is unfinished software, and the interface may go through several revisions before the product's release.

Nice Comments

On the whole, the interface seems pretty sleek and elegant. It retains familiar Windows metaphors while visually separating itself from prior releases. With this release, Microsoft has definitely addressed the garishness of WindowsXP and the criticisms leveled toward the "plex" interface of previous Longhorn builds. Also, the icons are showing improvement. I especially like the Recycle Bin icon, but I wish the screenshots here included the full state of the Recycle Bin as well.

The "Computer" window in screenshot seven has nice progress bars visually representing how much of the disk space is currently being used. I have to admit that a similar function is lacking in the Mac OS X Finder. (Yes, I know that the FInder shows how much space is available at the bottom of the Finder window, but visual indicators are nice too.) Also the Spotlight...err, Search field in the Start Menu is a nice touch.

Concerns

Interface translucency is a very cool thing, and I am a sucker for glassy effects. However, translucency in the title bars may not be a good idea, especially in Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer where the location and search fields are also translucent. Some serious usability issues could come out of this (as Apple learned in the early OS X days when inactive title bars became translucent.) On the other hand, the blurring of the background through the translucent objects may alleviate this problem.

Another issue could be performance. Okay, now I'm speculating, but eye-candy like translucency and gaussian blurs eat processor cycles. Also, cool 3D effects have also been demoed – again more cycles. Hopefully the new Desktop Composition Engine (DCE, code named Avalon) will help take care of this, much as Quartz Extreme helps offload much of the eye-candy in Mac OS X onto the graphics processor. Additionally, Microsoft will probably let the user decide what eye-candy is active in the Appearance Manager.

Finally, Microsoft seems to be falling prey to the visual inconsistencies that have been cropping up in Mac OS X for the past few years. In Longhorn, there is a black gradient Taskbar which opens to a Start Menu that follows similar aesthetics. This contrasts with glassy windows in Windows Explorer as well as some applications like Paint and Internet Explorer. Furthermore, one of the screenshots shows navigation and information elements within two different file windows where the information has backgrounds of different colors. (Perhaps this isn't so bad because the different colors may represent different directories, but it still seems like overkill.) Then, also in this category, is Windows Media Player, which seems to follow its own set of rules separate and apart from the rest of the OS (much like iTunes does in Mac OS X).

Miscellany

What is with Microsoft's obsession with green elements? They are all over the place in XP, and here we see that the Star Menu's active state is green. Oh well, at least it doesn't clash with the rest of the interface like it does in XP's Luna style.

Is it me, or does the search icon in the Start Menu, Windows Explorer, and Internet Explorer look exactly like the icon for Apple's Spotlight and the search field in Safari? (Edit: I'll take this one back. After looking over GUIdebook, this icon seems a natural evolution of the icon Microsoft has used for search since Windows 95. Also, it's pointing the opposite direction from Spotlight's and Safari's icons.)

Conclusion

Microsoft is making progress with WIndows Longhorn, and it looks to improve on Windows' strengths while addressing some of its past weaknesses. It has hit some serious bumps in its development, and it will be some time before Longhorn reaches the potential that it initially promised. Regardless, this looks like it is shaping up to be a decent upgrade for Windows users, and while it may not inspire any switchers off the Mac (not me at any rate), it will have some of us wishing Mac OS X had translucent windows instead of brushed metal.

For further reading on Windows Longhorn, visit the Longhorn section of the SuperSite for Windows.

Tags: technology, microsoft, opinion, software

Okay, I don't know if Steve Ballmer really amuses me or really scares me. Between the developer's brainwashing mantra and the famous "monkey" dance, that man has demonstrated he has little to no dignity. I also love this article, where a USA Today reporter is interrupted three times by Ballmer. Ballmer claims that Microsoft "likes to be first" when the reporter is making the point that Microsoft is not always first to the market with a new idea or innovation. Actually, the reporter probably would have managed to put a positive spin on his point had Ballmer not been so belligerent.

Apple may not have the marketshare Microsoft has, but it can always point at Redmond and say, "Our CEO is cooler than your CEO."

Tags: technology, microsoft