Happy New Year's Eve!

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Re-Installing Leopard Has Surprises
Did a stupid thing a few days ago and agreed to beta test some software that required the use of Insantiy's APE file (Application Enhancer) - a strict "no no" for the Leopard users of this world. Before Leopard if you wanted to change or alter the dock, Insanity offered a neat little program that would do it for you and installed the APE file.

What Apple nor Insanity told anyone was that Leopard and APE together resulted in the blue screen of nothingness. That is, upon restart your system would not display your desktop or all your icons, it just displayed an empty blue screen. The mouse and keyboard worked but you couldn't do anything or go anywhere.

In the middle of installing the beta software I noticed it was installing APE and as quickly as I could, aborted the installation. I forgot all about it and after a situation with my friend's new iMac (see below) I decided to check out my own system and make sure all my hardware was up to snuff. It was but required a restart at the end of the diagnostics. Upon restart I got nada - just a blue screen. I tried all the tricks, even making it to the terminal and deleted the offending APE files (I thought) but still nothing. My machine was now useless unless I reinstalled Leopard and I dreaded the thought of losing all my work on the boot drive (I have 5 drives). Yes, I did have a backup of the system and I tried reinstalling from there but because I back up nightly that backup also included the newly added APE file.

So I reinstalled Leopard and selected to option to retain my previous setup. I did this was Tiger once and what you got was a folder half full of some user settings but apps and such all had to be re-serialized and it was a pain in the ass. Still, I hit the button and went on to bed because it said Leopard would install in just 20 minutes but the previous setup files would take 2 hours (it is a 1 terabyte drive). I tossed and turned all night dreading having to rebuild my entire system knowing it would take weeks to hone it back to my perfect view of excellence.

I get up this morning and to my complete surprise there was my old desktop. All the icons were lined up to the right and there were some duplicate icons pulled from the trash but nothing of serious value was missing. I was connected to the 'Net, Wifi worked as it should, the old dock was back with that ugly shelf and I was at v10.5,not 10.5.1 but that was quickly remedied. I don't know how Apple figured out how to do this but they have my undying respect and support for making my Mac computing life so easy.

Neighbor's New iMac Goes Belly-up!
I've owned three iMacs, four MaBooks, iPods, iPhones and a Mac Pro and in all that time have never experienced a hardware failure. I talked my neighbor into buying an iMac for converting his VHS and cassette tapes over to digital and he's been working on it diligently for two months. I run into him to ask how its going and he says something is wrong, his computer won't start up and all he gets is a question mark on his screen. I drop by, we check it out and I find the system can't find a hard drive. I call Apple Tech, they walk us through the test, agree it is a hard disk failure and give us an appointment with the Genius Bar in Downtown SF the following day (today).

We arrive, meet with "Steve" a personable guy who knows his stuff, he checks it out and says the hard drive went kaput. He apologized, put a rush on it and says the iMac will be back in 2-3 days barring tomorrow's holiday. No cost, of course. Neighbor did not buy AppleCare but still the machine is covered for a full year. You just don't get better service then that. God Bless Apple.

Removing Leopard's Dock Shelf
It's really incredibly easy. I hate that shelf and love those little white glow lights under active icon apps. I want the shelf removed, a transparent background so the icons just sort of sit at the bottom of the screen and beneath them the little glow lights when an app is active. Here's how you do it:

Got to:

- Macintosh HD
- System
- Library
- Core Services
-Right click on Dock.app and hit Show Package
- Contents
- Resources
Remove these graphics from Resources (you'll have to give you admin pwd):
- frontline.png
- scurve-xl.png
- scurve-sm.png
- scurve-m.png
- scurve-l.png

(You can copy them to another folder or just delete them, just get them out of Resources)

Next go to Applications/Utilities/Termarinal App and start Terminal.app

Type: killall Dock

The old shelf dock will fade down below the screen then rise again without the shelf and display only the icons and the glow lights. Click here a mini-screen shot of my dock without the shelf.

Sunday Scraps

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iPhones v1.1.3 Breaks All 3rd Party Apps
Gizmodo is reporting that Apple is now including a private Apple encryption key which disables and removes all third-party apps and if you try upgrading a hacked iPhone you will be bricked. Even if you return the AT&T sim card back to a pre-activated iPhone, the iPhone will not activate. The firmware update is expected to hit next week.

Those with hacked iPhones should also note: if you upgrade to v1.1.3 you will NOT be able to download to v1.1.1 or 1.1.2. Apple has changed the iPhone with this upgrade to prevent downgrading. If you try you'll receive an "Incorrect Sim" error and your iPhone will be locked. When the iPhone SDK is released in February all iPhones will be required to update to the latest firmware to be able to run apps based on the SDK. Unlocked iPhones will stop running.

Note here: all of this information is coming from one source, the creator of Walluminate, Natetrue. If it turns out to be false the poor guy will never be believed or retain any credibility again.

NYT Says iTunes Movie Rentals With Other Companies
Although it is still unconfirmed by Apple, it is expected to be confirmed at MacWorld - iTunes will sell a vast array of movie rentals. A deal with 20th Century Fox has been made for releases straight through iTunes and Apple will be the only current company selling new movie releases through iTunes. All other online services are selling older movies or TV shows. New releases will also be available for iPod-sized FairPlay-encoded files. Look for several movie company officials to share the stage with Steve at MacWorld to make the announcement.

Free Pages Templates
OneEyedGoldFish.com is offering a set of 8 different document templates for all users of Apple's Pages program. Applause to OneEyeGoldFish.com for sharing.

Saturday Secrets

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Here Comes iPhone Firmware 1.1.3!
Expected at any time, the new iPhone update offers several new items. Now iPhone users will be able to send SMS messages to multiple groups of people, the Google Map includes a new "Locate Me" button that works like GPS (Google Maps application can now pinpoint your location using cell tower triangulation), you'll be able to edit your Home screen buttons by dragging and dropping them to arrange their order and Safari will include a new feature that allows you to "Add Bookmark to Home Screen" for iPhone bookmarking. There are more new features too - and - Apple has again plugged some holes which will stop iPhone hacking and those with hacked iPhones will find, if they update, their iPhones turn to bricks - again!

Netscape Navigator Buried
AOL, owner of Netscape, has pulled the plug on further development of Netscape Navigator (all versions) saying "“…we feel it’s the right time to end development of Netscape branded browsers, hand the reins fully to Mozilla and encourage Netscape users to adopt Firefox”. Although FireFox is becoming the norm it is only a browser and does not include built-in chatting, mail or the ability to create web pages (Composer). OTOH, SeaMonkey, which is Mozilla in suite form, does include all of the suite features and is still be developed. Get it here.

Command H - What Is It?
One of the biggest advantages Mac users have is the Command [Apple key] H feature. I can understand new Mac users not knowing about or utilizing the command but am at a loss when it comes to seasoned Mac users who don't use this amazing advantage.

When invoked, Command H hides the current application out of sight. It still runs and does what it should do but it doesn't appear as a second active icon in your Dock. Instead, it hides in the background of your computer. To bring it back to the forefront you simply click on the application's dock icon.

Why would you use it? Primarily to keep the size of your dock to a manageable size. The biggest complaint I hear from new Mac users is that "my dock gets too big when I minimize my applications". You would also invoke the Command H function when you don't need to continually monitor the application. Here is a good example:

You buzz off to The Pirate Bay and download a torrent. You drag the torrent into Transmission and the download begins. You see that it is going to be two hours before it is finished downloading. You can minimize Transmission but you've already got six applications running and their active minimized icons have stretched your dock to the edge of your screen. You don't really need Transmission to be minimized, you just need it to run and complete the job without your constant attention. The answer is to "Command H" Transmission. Left click on Transmission to give it the main focus then press down the Command key (aka Apple key) and hit the H key. Transmissions disappears. Did you close it? No, you simply "hid" it from view. It remains running in the background and when your download completes, Transmission will beep and bounce once up and down in your dock. When that happens just click the bouncing Transmission icon and Transmission comes back on the screen.

As a seasoned Mac user I don't minimize too many applications any more. I hide them because I know they can come right back into view by clicking on their dock icon.

Start using Command H today and soon you'll be using it all the time.

Friday Potluck

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iPhone Tip - Shutting Phone Functions Off
How do you switch the phone functions off but keep the rest of your iPhone functioning? Go to Settings and turn on Airplane mode. Everything will work but the phone portion of your iPhone!

iPhone WiFi Purchase Patent Granted To Apple
Forbes is reporting that Apple has been granted a patent that will allow iPhone owners to purchase just about anything you want using your iPhone. You will be able to buy theater tickets, goods, groceries, clothes, and other merchandise without having to stand in line at your local store. You'll be able to order a coffee from your seat in an internet (wifi connected) cafe, a meal from Burger King from your car for pickup through the drive-thru or a new TV at Circuit City and have it waiting for you at customer pick-up? All will be possible with the new patent granted to Apple and Apple has already created the software to do this specific to the iPhone. If you thought the recent Starbucks deal was cool then you can expect many many consumer businesses to announce they too offer iPhone purchases. BTW, the patent is tied directly to OS X.

Apple Shares Opened Over $200 Today.

Thursday Thoughts

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iTunes To Offer Movie Rentals
Wall Street is reporting a deal has been struck between Apple and 20th Cetury Fox to offer thousands of movie rentals, with pre-ripped versions available for iPod/iPhone downloads as well as full screen play. Expect the announcement at MacWorld on January 15th.

3G iPhone
Expect the announcement during the second quarter of 2008 and release by June, if not sooner, for the second generation 3G iPhone. Taiwanese tech industry is gearing up for new Apple touchscreen and iPhone releases at that time.

5 Million iPhones
Jobs is expected to announce the sale of 5 million iPhones at MacWorld - 1.5 million from sales of the iPhone throughout Europe. According to AT&T, whose activation service went down due to an overwhelming number of new iPhone customers on Christmas day, sales of the iPhone as Christmas gifts surpassed expectations.

U.S. Army Opts for Security of Macs
The Army has endured a number of high-profile hacking incidents this past year due to the poor security of the Microsoft operating system platform and as a result are now adding Macs to its IT infrastructure. The security of the UNIX core of OS X, combined with the lack of virus, worms and trojans, ensures a stronger security for the U.S. Armed Forces. The Army has begun porting their software packages over to OS X and by February the Army's access card system will be ported to OS X.

Wednesday Whistling

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New Apple Laptop Confirmed for MacWorld
The Boy Genius Report says that at a recent Apple event several musical artists performed for free and in return, Apple promised to give every performer and band member one of the new laptops to be announced at MacWorld. And those new laptops would be available one week after MacWorld. Speculation is that the new laptops will incorporate carbon-fiber with Ti and will be much slimmer than today's MacBook Pros.

MacBook Number 1 Seller on Amazon
According to Amazon's hourly "bestseller list", Apple's most excellent MacBook is the number one laptop sold by Amazon. There's a fight tho' between the MacBook and the HP Pavilion.

Apple Shares Hit $200 Today Rising More Than 130 Percent in 2007.

Flip4Mac WMV v2.2 now available. Grab here here.

iPhone Now Number 2 In Sales
The iPhone has debuted at number two in smartphone sales just below Blackberry. That's quite significant when you consider the Blackberry is sold through a great many cell phone services (Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile and even AT&T) while the iPhone is sold exclusively through AT&T. The fact that it has debuted at number two in just six short months has to have the BlackBerry folks crapping their pants. By March the iPhone should be number one and thus far, no smartphone, has that kind of impact so quickly on the smart phone industry. Hats off to Apple!

UK's O2 Sells 200,000 iPhones
Matthew Key, CEO of Britain's O2 visited Cupertino recently and told Steve Jobs O2 is on track to sell 200,000 iPhones by January. He adds that 60 percent of those UK iPhone customers are new to his company and that he expects an exclusive deal with Apple to sell the 3G iPhone.

Merry Christmas!

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Happy Holidays To Everyone!

Apple Gearing Up for iPhone Apps
Lucas Newman of Delicious Monster has been hired by Apple as an 'iPhone engineer" according to a message posted by Wil Shipley (of Delicious Monster). Lucas helped on the first iPhone game called Lights Off and then helped with the iPhone Atlas. Now, as am Apple employee, Apple will be able to control what he says publicly and that may have been their purpose in hiring him as well as seek his iPhone skills.

iPhone Apps Being Bandied About
Apple may surprise us all at MacWorld by announcing new authorized applications for the iPhone. Apps being talked about are MobileRSS and Search (for Calendar and Contacts).

OnyX Beta 2 for Leopard
If you're interested you can downloaded it here.

Airport Extreme Base Station Update?
Now marked as "no longer available" on the UK Apple store, this is generally a sign that Apple is about to replace or update a product. Airport Extreme remains available on the US Apple store website.

MacBook Tip: Movie Screen Fading To Black?
Are you watching a DVD and find the screen keeps falling asleep (dimming to black)? Easy fix. You'll want to adjust the power management properties. Click on the battery icon in the upper-right corner of your screen and select: "Open Energy Saver."

. Make sure settings read Power Adapter
. Select Sleep
. Move the scroller to "Put the Computer to Sleep..." to "Never"
. Move the scroller to "Put the Display to Sleep..." to "Never"
. Where you had selected Sleep, now choose Options
. Under Other Options, uncheck the box that has the screen dim prior to sleep

Mac Sweeper (It's Free)
Its cleaning tool for Mac, it cleans Universal Binaries, Language files, and some other trash. It also find strange cookies. It is free and will free up a lot of good space being taken up by stupid stuff.

ATI X1900 Graphic Cards and Display Lines
Are you still being harassed by such things? It is a heat issue with the ATI graphics card. You should ramp the fan on the card up from its default 500 to 1500 rpms by using a free little fan control program called smcFanControl v2.12. Buy a can of compressed air, open your Mac Pro casing and blow out all the dust in/around the graphics card as well as all the vents. Once that is done you should have no more problems with display lines. If you do then it is most likely a faulty ATI X1900 graphic card.

Sunday Freebies

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AppCleaner
AppCleaner is a small free application which allows you to completely and properly uninstall unwanted apps.

The toolbar has the following useful features: Drop an application onto the AppCleaner icon and AppCleaner searches for the related files and then by clicking the red cross it deletes them. If you change your mind, just click on the green arrow back button.

The "Applications" button shows all the applications installed on your system. You can select them and then click on the magnifying glass search button. AppCleaner will search for the related files of the selected applications and delete them, too.

The "Widgets" button shows all the installed widgets and the "Others" button displays all the installed Preference Panes, Plugins and Screen Savers.

AppFresh
AppFresh helps you to keep all applications (third-party and Apple), widgets, preference panes and application plugins on your Mac up to date, from one place. It works by checking the excellent iusethis.com for new versions and lets you download and install available updates easily.

AppFresh not only gets update information from iusethis.com. If you have an user profile at iusethis.com you can manage it from within AppFresh and control which applications appear in your profile, even automatically. We can only recommend you sign up, it's free and lets you see how many users use a certain application. In AppFresh, the full iusethis.com application page with comments and links to similar apps is always just a click away.

AppFresh can capture the installed version of an application along with your preferences and application data and store it in a safe place. This way, you're covered in case you decide you liked the last version of an application better. Create as many snapshots as you want to make sure you don't lose anything.

Saturday Update

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Security Update 2007.009 v1.1 Released
Hit your "Software Update" button to download and automatically install the latest security update for your OS X system. It is recommended for all Leopard users and improves the security in the Core Foundation, CUPS, Flash Player, Quick Look, Safari, Shockwave and more. (Note: this update is primarily to fix crashes that were occurring in Safari.)

Friday Banter

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OS/2 Users - Why They Whine
They whine because they have no where to go and life is passing them by very quickly. OS/2 died in 1995 when IBM stopped developing it and they keep dreaming that IBM will pull it out of the closet and come to their faded rescue. Today there are no OS/2 developers of any value left, no new applications, they can't really do anything on their machines except text each other and whine and the poor state of their finances, old age and Microsoft. Best advice? Buy a Mac.

5 Million iPhones Will Be Sold By MacWorld
With one million sales of iPhones to the European market by mid-January, Apple will have reached 50% of its 10 million iPhone sales goal by the time Steve Jobs takes the state at MacWorld. OS X is already the predominate mobile operating system on the Internet outpacing Microsoft's Windows Mobile OS and Consumer Reports has given the nod to the iPhone over the once king BlackBerry.

Thursday Tattles

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No Santa For OS/2 users
The majority of OS/2 users have moved on to other operating systems - primarily to OS X. The reason OS X has become their migration OS default is OS X's similarity to OS/2. Still, there are are handful of whiners, mostly old men, jaded and misguided, who will sit with nothing beneath their Christmas trees this year because Santa has erased them from his gift list. There will be no OS/2 v5.0, no eComStation 3.0 and the little group of OS/2 developer elves have tip-toed out the back door of the OS/2 community because they can't pay the light bill or bring the bacon home an no longer believe anything those old OS/2 seniors say.

Those left in the OS/2 community have been crying and pouting for five years now. They need to suck it up and get on with what's left of their pitiful lives.

ThinkSecret No Longer Secret
Nick DePlume, owner of Think Secret, has announced that an amicable settlement between Think Secret and Apple has been agreed upon and he will shut down his Think Secret site. Apple filed suit against Think Secret in an effort to obtain the sources providing Apple product leaks which were then published on Think Secret.

Wednesday Whispers

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It's official. Al Gore Sits On Apple Board
Beautiful announcement today from Apple. Former Vice President Al Gore has been elected to the Board of Directors for Apple, Inc. “Al brings an incredible wealth of knowledge and wisdom to Apple from having helped run the largest organization in the world—the United States government—as a Congressman, Senator and our 45th Vice President. Al is also an avid Mac user and does his own video editing in Final Cut Pro,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “Al is going to be a terrific Director and we’re excited and honored that he has chosen Apple as his first private sector board to serve on.”

Next Mac Update Will Be Big
Beta testers have been reporting on the next update of Leopard (v10.5.2) which was issued to developers yesterday (Tuesday) labeled Mac OS X 10.5.2 build 9C7. Items in for updates include the Dock, Finder, Grammar Checking, iCal, iChat, Mail, Parental Controls, Quick Look, Rosetta, Safari, Time Machine and Airport. THAT's a long list of fixes and/or enhancements expected. In total there should be around 76 additions, changes or adjustments and Apple is pushing CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) very hard ensuring reverse order printing, print jobs on hold and AirPort printing. Don't expect it until MacWorld at the earliest (along with the new hardware, like Penryn Mac Pros!)

Consumer Reports: Apple iPhone Best
The January 2008 publication of Consumer Reports will crown Apple's iPhone as the best Smartphone on the market out pacing the BlackBerry and the Treo, iPhone's two largest competitors. The iPhone scored a total of 64 versus 61 points for the BlackBerry and emphasized the iPhone's 8.25 hours of battery time over the BlackBerry's lowly 6.25 hours as well as the iPhones ease-of-use and the iPhones stronger email client. And they said it couldn't be done!

Free & Appealing iPhone/iTouch Wallpaper
The MakeThisMine website has a fine library full of excellent wallpaper backgrounds for your iPhone or iTouch. They will even make custom backgrounds for anyone who asks.

PC Users Biggest Thieves
Ouch! The NDP Group, who is quickly building a respected reputation, has revealed today that Apple owners are more apt to pay for music downloads then PC users. Only 16% of PC users were found to actually buy their music while more than 50% of all Mac users buy theirs. Thieves. They are everywhere!

New Apple Store To NY's UWS
The NY Post let it leak today that Apple is going to open another "amazing" Apple store on the Upper East Side of New York. Great location and perfect building. Take a look.

Tuesday Updates

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Leopard Climbs In Record Sales
Apple sold two million copies of Leopard in just two days and pundits claimed the OS was built for speed and not endurance. When compared to sales of Apple's previous operating system, Tiger, it took 43 days until two million sales were racked up - and Tiger was a 30 percent increase over the previous Apple OS (Panther) and a 100% increase over the 2002 release of Jaguar. All of this news is coming out of the NDP Group, the largest Marketing Research company in America. Way to go, Apple!

Security Update for Leopard Released
Apple quietly released "Security Update 2007-009" yesterday for Leopard. It closes several bugs that affected Adobe Flash Player, QuickLook, AddressBook and now performs additional validation of SNMP responses in Leopard. If your system hasn't alerted you yet then click on your software update button and install the release. Always good to be more secure.

iTouch Dissected
The components of the iTouch have been dissected and comprise hardware from many sources. All told and added up, it costs Apple about $147 to produce the iTouch.

iPhone Going To Japan
Jobs met with Nakamura, president of Japan's largest wireless carrier, as well as Softbank, Japan's third largest wireless carrier, while excluding Japan's second-rated carrier, KDDI, for talks of bringing the iPhone to Japan. iPhones release in Japan means Apple would have to produce a 3G iPhone which is the standard there - the only country small enough to have such a standard. It will be a great training ground for Apple to improve the iPhone and the stumbling block of 40% additional battery use to support 3G.

Apple Will Produce a Penryn MacBook
You can count on it with the announcement today from Fujitsu will be the first to release a 2.8 pound notebook with a battery life of nearly 10 hours, 1G memory, 120G hard drive, Bluetooth and a DVD burner. Expect a new, lighter, thinner more powerful MacBook announcement at MacWorld. Apple may buck the tide and omit the DVD burner altogether announcing the thinnest notebook on the market.

iPhone and AT&T Set To Dominate
Don Reisinger, a tech journalist, claims the iPhone will make AT&T the most dominant cell phone carrier in the world. View the article over at MacNN.

Monday Classes

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In class today. Will blog if I get a chance.

Sunday Sites

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iPhone and GPS Is "Do-able" . Watch this...

Saturday Suggestions

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MacBook Chrismas Gift Suggestions
If you know someone with a new MacBook here are some wonderful Christmas gift suggestions that are sure to please them (or yourself should Santa need your personal list):

1. More RAM memory. The C2D MacBooks should be sold with 4Gig of memory but they aren't. For as little as $150 you can buy them 4GB (2G sticks each)from various vendors like OWC (fast delivery, highly recommended) Crucial and RamJet. RAM is easy to install and makes a great deal of difference in the power and speed of any C2D MacBook.

2. MacBook Sleeves. Nothing saves the exterior finish from bumps, nicks and marring then a soft elegant shammy-like form fitting sleeve. RadTech offers the perfect sleeve made of Optiex Super80 fabric that hugs your MacBook snugly like a glove. It even doubles as an insulator when placed on your lap to protect from warm MacBook bottoms. Comes in Gray, Fuchsia, Indigo, Green, Grape, Black and Shagwire.

3. MacBook Screen Protectors. Again, look to RadTech. They make a matching screen protector which lays over your keyboard to protect the screen and keyboard and can be used to clean and polish your screen. The protector keeps off oils, dirt, marks and keeps your LCD display clean and polished. Made of super-soft Optex fabric, a non-woven, ultra-thin advanced polishing fabric. Comes in Gray, Fuchsia, Indigo, Green, Grape, Black and Shagwire.

4. Wireless Bluetooth Re-Chargeable Mini-Mouse. I hate to keep hyping RadTech but they are the only company on the 'Net that makes a Mac wireless Bluetooth re-chargeable fully functioning optical mini-mouse with scroll wheel. It is called the BT500. It arrives with two rechargeable NiMH AAA batteries and a USB cable for recharging while you continue to use the mouse. Tiny, compact, lightweight and perfect for the MacBook.

5. MacBook Screen and Case Cleaner. The best, so far, goes to iKlear which sells a packaged "cleaning kit" at a reasonable cost. It is a non-toxic environmentally formula made in California that is anti-static and is alcohol, ammonia and sodium lauryl sulfate free. Comes with polishing cloths that are ultra-soft and optical grade. It will not only clean your screen to glossy perfection but it will also clean your MacBook case very nicely.

Friday Pondering

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Garageband Now Makes Custom Ringtones
Apple has quietly upgraded Garageband adding a new feature: the ability to make your own custom ringtones from any audio or music file on your system. They even added a little "Send ringtone to iTunes" so you can add your custom ringtone to your iPhone.

Its very easy to do. Drag any song or audio file from iTunes into Garageband. It appears as a new sound track. Select the portion of song you want as a ringtone, as much as 40 seconds worth (Garageband will alert you if you exceed that amount and allow you to readjust the length yourself or will automatically adjust it for you). Once you have your portion of the sound file tagged go up to the Share menu and select the new feature called "Send Ringtone To iTunes". WaaLAA! You now have a custom ringtone from a song or sound file you may have downloaded via P2P! Thank you Apple!

Thursday Tips

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French iPhones Remain Locked
Those who travel to France to buy an unlocked iPhone are sorely disappointed when they get home and find their iPhones won't work with their non-French carrier. French iPhones retain a country lock which limits their use to French carriers only. Plugging in a non-French Sim card results in the inability to make any phone calls, use SMS or any of the other "carrier only" features. French law dictates the sale of unlocked iPhones but French law doesn't dictate the unlocking of such iPhone outside of France.

First "Get A Mac" Christmas Ad from Apple - so cute!!!

Video Recording Confirmed on iPhone
Monster and Friends have released a beta iPhone app that can record video at 45 frames per second using the iPhone's built-in camera. That is noteworthy because current smartphones that can record video can only do so at 30 frames per second (which is why the resulting video is so jerky). The app verifies the iPhone's capability of video recording and is expected to be included as a new feature once the SDK (Software Developer's Kit) is released in February. Not only will the iPhone get video recording but Apple plans on making it better than any other smartphone on the market.

100 Mac Keyboard Symbol Shotcuts
Ever want to insert a symbol in your text and couldn't figure out how to do it? Usingmac.com has a full page of keyboard commands to make symbols such as (apple), ¢ (cents) and © (copyright). Go here to learn them all!

Putting Time AND Date In Your Menubar
Mac OS X only: If you want to see today's date in your menubar, you can add it manually in System Preferences. It's not an obvious checkbox or dropdown, so follow these instructions closely.

1. In System Preferences, open the Date & Time feature then select "OpenInternational" and go to the Formats tab.
2. In the Dates section, click the Customize button. Under "Show:" select Full then arrange your date in the format you want to appear on your menubar. Use the down arrows on each element to choose between formats (January, Jan, 01, 1, etc.) I chose [Oct 29], as shown.customizedate.png
3. Now you must copy the entire date format and copy it to your clipboard so click inside the date bar box and hit Command A then Command C. Hit OK.
4. Hit the Customize button next to Times. Choose the "Medium" format.
5. Paste the date format on your clipboard next to the time format, add a space or two so the day of the week does not butt up against the AM or PM then hit OK.

Look up at your Menu Bar. You should not have the time and date something like this:

Thu 1:20 PM December 13, 2007

New Apple Displays Coming?
Rumors are spreading across the 'Net that Apple will announce new Cinema Displays at the upcoming MacWorld. Speculation says the new displays will include built-in iSight cameras, new trime, an HDMI port (for games or HD movie players), LED backlighting (iffy) and various sizes beginning at 24" to as large as 40". All speculation tho' based on the recent removal of all Cinema Displays from the front page of Apple's online store.

Wednesday Crawl

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2nd Generation iPhone Info
Goldman Sachs met with Asian manufacturers who revealed Apple will offer two revisions to the iPhone in 2008. The first will be a smaller upgrade option offering more flash memory and will come early in the year while the second will be a new second generation iPhone, currently in final design phase, and it will have a similar form but a different look and will most likely include 3G capability.

Amy Winehouse iTunes Sales
Album sales for Amy Winehouse are the top selling on iTunes. Go figger.

Norton AntiVirus 11 Ships
The question is "why?". There is no reason for any Mac user to purchase or subscribe to any antivirus product for the Mac. Still, Norton is relying on the fears ingrained in Microsoft users who have moved to the Mac to con them into buying their Mac product and subscribing to their monthly ongoing antivirus service. If you are a Mac user reading this and wonder if you need it - you DO NOT!

Tuesday Stuff

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Hurry - One Day Only! Grab it!
The folks at DivX are gving away a free legal serial number to their DivX 6.8 Professional software. You *want* this! To get it you must provide a legal valid email address.

For those of you that always wanted DivX 6.8 Professional but never wanted to purchase it, today may be your lucky day. DivX is giving away free legal serial numbers to their software. The one requirement is you must provide a valid email address.

DivX Pro includes the DivX Converter, allowing you to instantly create divx files, even in a batch process; Pro Codec, allowing you to play DivX files from QuickTime / FrontRow, DivX Player and Web Player. This bundle of applications are generally sold for $19.99, but free today.

Apple has overtaken Cisco
The most valuable IT vendors today include Microsoft, Google and Apple. It used to be MS, Google and Cisco but Apple's stock value has now exceeded Cisco's pushing Cisco out of the number 3 spot. The next goal? To conquer Google!

Steve Honors Al in Oslo
Steve Jobs dressed up in a suit appeared in Oslo to honor Al Gore as Al received the Nobel Peace Prize.

What Idiots!
Microsoft announced today the completion of Office 2008 for the Mac and it will be go on sale next month, in time for Macworld. It will be offered in three versions ranging from $150 to $500. Duh... The latter will be dubbed the "Special Media Edition". There is nothing "special" about Microsoft at all other then their own stupidity.

Sunday Snoozing

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Free WireTap Pro from MacHeist
Remember Malcor? The guy who claimed to hack Mac sites? It was all a scam and it cost the website owner the loss of credibility. Well, now to (apparently) get back into the good graces of many Mac users, the website MacHeist is offering a free version of WireTap Pro. Grab your free copy today. Be aware that you'll have to register online with them but it is quick and painless and you can use an alias to avoid future spamming. There has been a call to boycott MacHeist for the ruse they pulled on the Mac community.

Saturday Chores

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The next CEO of Apple?

Jonathan Ives, a 40-year old San Francisco resident, is considered to be the front runner for the position when Steve steps down. Today "Jony" is Apple's senior vice-president of industrial design and the man behind the creation of the iMac and the iPhone. Look at that face closely for he could very well be the next man in charge of Apple.

eComStation GA Sinks Again
The handful of elderly OS/2 users are up in arms again after reports out of the Serenity camp that eComstation has had another setback. Sources inside the camp say delivery of a working GA version of eCS has been pushed forward to almost 2009. The problem? The dissolution and subsequent abandonment of the few programmers with OS/2 skills. "They've moved on to other non-OS/2 project claiming they are tired of the constant bickering and negativity of those few OS/2 users left, the lack of resources and the expectation that they are to do the impossible all for free.

Advice to those hanging on to the shreds of OS/2: pack it up, admit defeat, stop hanging on to pipe dreams and decide on a new computing direction. IBM has buried OS/2 and standing at the gravesite believing OS/2 is going to rise again is fruitless. More importantly, you look like fools.

Don't Want To Take That Call?
If you receive a call on your iPhone you can see who is calling, even when it is locked. You can decline to take the call and send it off to voice mail by:

- Sliding the bar to Answer.
- Press the Top button twice to Decline the call and send it off to voicemail.

Seagate Wins As Fastest 1TB Drive
If you are looking to increase the size of your hard drive or add another hard drive then Seagate's 1TB Barracuda 7200.11 internal hard drive is the fastest, according to extensive testing done over at BareFeats.com.

On a Mac Pro you can have four of these hard drives and give yourself some breathing room for a total of 4TB of hard disk space! That's like opening your back door and having the entire state of Montana as a back yard!

Apple has squirreled away some 15 billion in the bank.

Friday Gems

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10.5.2 Rumor For MacWorld
Hardmac claims that Steve will release OS X 1.5.2 at MacWorld '08 adding it will be "the largest and most important intermediate system update ever released by Apple..." Sounds impressive. Let's hope it isn't just a rumor!

T-Mobile Pulls Sales of Unlocked iPhones
Since the Court ruling on Friday gave T-Mobile the exclusive right to sell Apple's iPhone under their contract, T-Mobile has ceased the sale of all unlocked iPhones. That puts a big crimp in the hacked iPhone market. Even though T-Mobile sold about 600 unlocked iPhones (20% of their 30,000 sales over the weekend) those unlocked iPhones go nil with the upcoming firmware upgrade to v1.1.3 - rumored to be released on Saturday. If you were one of the unlucky fellows to shell out $1,500 for an unlocked iPhone, your unlocked iPhone will be turned into a brick if you try and upgrade it to v1.1.3. You are stuck at v1.1.2.

Unlocked German iPhones Failing To Work
The forums are filling up with pleas for help in getting high-priced unlocked iPhones to work. After signing up with any cell phone service the iPhones won't make outgoing calls, SMS, last calls list and the digital dialer all fail to work among other things. The Mac forums are filling up with requests for help and getting no answers. Hackers told us using an unlocked iPhone would show the world how wrong Apple was for locking them in the first place. Yeah, right.

Manhattan Gets Largest Apple Store
"Apple® will open its newest retail store on West 14th Street in New York’s Meatpacking District on Friday, December 7 at 6:00 p.m. EST. The Apple Store West 14th Street is Apple’s first three-story store with two floors dedicated to products and a third dedicated to services, including a 46-foot Genius Bar and specially designed areas for workshops and personal training. The Apple Store West 14th Street also introduces Pro Labs where customers can receive free, in-depth training on Apple’s industry-leading pro applications..."

Ultra-portable MacBook and Penryn Mac Pros
Engadget has a rumor going that Apple will offer three new products at this coming MacWorld. An ultra-portable MacBook for $1,500 at half the thickness of the current MacBook; The French magazine MacBidouille claims the Mac Pro will get a 3.2GHz eight-core setup with an NVIDIA QuadroFX graphics and Blu-ray burner; and of course, the 3G iPhone expected for delivery between March and June of next year. And oh yeah, we should see an upgrade to Leopard - v10.5.2 (as noted above).

MacBook Theft Alarm
The folks behind iAlertU have released another update to their clever little anti-theft software for MacBooks and MacBook Pros. It works like this: install the software and add a password and email address. When you step away click on a tiny little icon in the top menu bar and your machine is armed for any intruder or thief. Move the mouse, touch a key, close the lid, jar the machine and the most annoying car-type alarm goes off, the intruder's picture is snapped and immediately mailed to the owner of the machine. Steal the machine and without the password or the knowledge of how to input that password and your machine is safe. Everytime someone tries to use it their picture and surroundings are sent to the owner. And this software is currently free!

Thursday Round Up

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10.5.2 Rumor For MacWorld
Hardmac claims that Steve will release OS X 1.5.2 at MacWorld '08 adding it will be "the largest and most important intermediate system update ever released by Apple..." Sounds impressive. Let's hope it isn't just a rumor!

New iPhone Firmware With Features This Saturday?
CNET France is reporting the next Apple firmware for the iPhone will be released at the end of this week. It would be v1.1.3 if true. CNET France has also reported this update "adds both a disk mode for storing general data on the device and a voice recording mode for capturing lectures or voice memos. The disk feature behaves like the equivalent for iPods and will still block users from simply dragging and dropping content to load the phone with playable music..." but keep in mind, this is just one rumor by one website known for its dependence on Microsoft advertising.

Vodafone Squeals Like A Pig
Friedrich Joussen, CEO of Vodafone Deutschland, is being quoted by Heise Online whining "Apple and T-Mobile have decided to change the market in an anticompetitive way..." implying that Apple and T-Mobile are creating a monopoly by working together via contract to sell the iPhone. A German Court recently ruled against Vodafone who sought to destroy the deal between Apple and T-Mobile.

12-Inch MacBook Pro at MacWorld?
CNBC is claiming an ultra-portable MacBook pro will be announced by Steve at MacWorld. The machine will be 50% thinner then the current MacBook Pro and will retain a flash based storage system rather than an actual hard drive. It will retail for about $1500.

CNBC Also Claims A 3G iPhone In June 2008.

Changing Memory or a Harddrive In Your MacBook
OWC (Other World Computers) is just about the best Mac shop around. Their prices are cheaper or competitive with other Mac hardware online shops, they deliver quickly, and they take the time to put an instructional video together to guide you, whether it be changing or adding RAM to a MacBook or replacing the hard drive. Take a look at the video and you'll see how easy they make it for you.

Looking To Join A Great Mac Support Group?
I love these guys! They've got answers you won't find elsewhere and they bust their buns to help you. Who are they? MacOSG - Mac Owners Support Group.

You'll have to register using a valid email address but there are no fees. Their database of Mac information is incredible.

MacWorld Predictions
The American Chronicle is offering eight predictions for this coming MacWorld. They include:
- New Shuffle
- New iPods
- iPhone v2.0
- Mac sub-notebook
- New Mac Mini
- New WiFi platform
- New Displays
- Expanded iTunes with more video

White MacBook Stain Removal
Use a non-acetone version of nail polish remover to remove stains from your white MacBook. It must be non-acetone because acetone will ruin the exterior casing. Does a fine job removing yellow palm and wrist stains.

Midweek Items

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iPhone Tops Search Engines
The iPhone is the number 1 item requested in all the search engines on the 'Net. Apple's iPhone beat out Facebook, TMZ, Transformers, YouTube and Heroes.

Orange Sells 30,000 iPhone in 5 Days
Within the first five days of the iPhone being available for sale, Orange Executive Director reports 30,000 iPhones were sold or 6,000 per day. That figure also equates to the sale of 1 iPhone for every 2,000 Frenchmen! 80% of those buyers signed up for the iPhone contracted plan and of those, 50% were opening an Orange account for the first time. In short, about 50% of the new iPhone customers bolted from other French carriers. To date, world-wide, Apple has sold about 2.1 million iPhones. BTW, you know that German courts have ruled against Vodaphone and will allow T-Mobile Germany to retain exclusive sale of iPhones with their contracted service. Big blow to Vodaphone and other carriers who were hoping to stop T-Mobile's iPhone sales. Ruthless people!

MacWorld Mac Pros
Count on Steve to announce new Mac Pros at Janaury's Mac World. Intel will be formerly announcing the release of the new Penryn chip on January 7th, which offers a 20% speed increase to the speed of high end Mac Pros, and will boost the cost of a Penryn Mac Pro by $1,000. The 2.8GHz will also deliver a lower chip temperature pulling just 44 watts.

Goggle Now Offers Optimized iPhone Page
You can see it at http://www.google.com/m Very nice - when viewed on your iPhone. Not so nice when you view it on a full browser!

Newsy Tuesday

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Apple's v1.1.2 iPhone Is Faster!
When Apple released the latest v1.1.2 firmware for the iPhone users reported their iPhones were a little faster. The reason? The 1.1.2 firmware utilizes the processor at a higher speed. iPhones come with a 624mz processing and Apple originaly capped them at 400mz for everyday use and to enhance battery life. With no fanfare, Apple has moved the processing threshold up to 412mz.

So? This move up is a hint of what's to come because new features will require faster processing. Apple is definitely upgrading the iPhone code base and making various functions more efficient.

Adobe Releases Flash Upgrade for H.264
New support in the latest release of Adbobe's Flash Payer 9 (Update 3) now includes H.264 standard video support - the very same support used in Bue-Ray and HD-DVD high definition video players. It is available here.

iPhone Web Browsing Scaring Microsoft
Net Applications reports the iPhone now holds a 0.09% share of the browser market. Not much right? Compare that to the largest cell phone OS in use today, Windows CE and you'll find Microsoft only holds 0.06%. Injust four months Apple has surpassed their biggest competition.

Apple Scores Big In German Court
HAMBURG, Germany (Reuters) - Deutsche Telekom scored a victory in a legal battle with rival Vodafone over sales conditions for the coveted Apple iPhone, which T-Mobile sells exclusively in Germany. A German court ruled on Tuesday Deutsche Telekom’s mobile unit can make customers who buy the music-playing and web-browsing device take out a T-Mobile contract as well and may continue to offer the device with a locked SIM card. A locked card prevents the device from being used on rival networks. Deutsche Telekom shares were up 1.2 percent at 15.27 euros by 9:04 a.m. EST, outperforming a 0.3 percent dip in the DJ Stoxx telecoms index.

It secured an exclusive deal with Apple to sell the iPhone in Germany, where Apple has no stores. Customers had to sign up to a 24-month T-Mobile contract costing a minimum of 1,176 euros ($1,734) in order to buy the 399 euro phone. Vodafone had won a temporary court injunction preventing T-Mobile from locking the iPhone’s SIM card and offering it only in combination with a T-Mobile contract.

T-Mobile said it planned to return to its original sales conditions for the iPhone as soon as possible.

Apple's New Mac Ad - Too Funny!

Here's a Preview of the New "Penryn" Mac Pro ( Click to enlarge )

Cover Flow Uptop!

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We've Changed The Masthead
Now an interactive Cover Flow album of downloadable wallpapers. You can now browse through the wallpaper library above and double click to download the wallpaper of your choice.

MacWorld January 14 thru 18
It's official - Steve Jobs will present the keynote address at next year's Mac convention held, as usual, at Moscone Center. Steve will present all the Mac news on Tuesday, January 15th, beginning at 9:am.

Aye Me Maties!

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Pirate Bay Mac Widget - oes this work?
Considered a "must have" for every P2P Mac user, the Pirate Bay widget will list the top ten of any category you select. Note: the first time you start the widget you'll need to flip it over (press the kopimi-triangle in the bottom right) and select one category then flip it over. If you don't do this the widget will not find the correct feed. Once you see it is working then you can flip it back over and select the category of your choice.

WidgetMacTpbTop10.tgz is what you need to download.

Microsoft Office 2008 News
Microsoft plans to launch Office for the Mac 2008 in January at the MacWorld conference in San Francisco. The suite will allow users to export Powerpoint presentations as a series of pictures directly to iPhoto, or save slide images as pictures to their Pictures folder, reports Blair Neumann, a program manager in Microsoft's Mac development group, in a Wednesday entry on Microsoft's Office For Mac Team weblog.

The Wingnuts are loose!

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eCS - How Sad Is This?
There is a wingnut claiming he was casually searching bitorrent for an old utility (uh huh....) when low and behold he spotted a copy of eCS v1.2 with serial code available for download. He's prompting the silly group behind the product to download and identify the person assigned to the serial. eCS v2.0 RC1 and eCS Beta 4 are also available. Now here's the sadness about the whole business. No one has ever downloaded any one of these faded and dead offerings despite the fact that they have been available now for some 22 months. The original purchaser cannot be held liable because it cannot be proved he offered it for download. It was more than likely stolen in the first place.

iPhone 1.1.3 Expected Soon
German Apple customers who purchased the unlocked version of the iPhone find their product keeps crashing when using Austral