Macintosh Blogs > TUAW

Filed under: Rumors, iPhone

Apple has given developers a taste of the new iPhone firmware, version 2.2 beta 2, and it includes a host of spiffy new features that are making the rounds online.

A tipster shared with us some screenshots of the new firmware, including what appears to be the ability to download podcasts directly to your iPhone (and presumably your iPod touch). This could tidily explain why Apple rejected the Podcaster app last month. The option to “get more episodes” doesn’t appear to work in this firmware build, however.

MacRumors’ Arnold Kim links to an iPhoneHellas.gr screenshot showing the iPhone software asking for a rating before you delete an application. Kim speculates Apple is looking to increase participation in the App Store rating process.

Om Malik’s Apple Blog is showing off screenshots from the iPhoneYap.com message boards, including new Maps functionality. Google Street View will apparently be available by rotating the device into landscape mode. Public transportation support and directions for walking also seem to be included.

In the same report, the Apple Blog’s David Appleyard also mentions location sharing via email and SDK support for manipulating line-in audio as part of the seed.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Article Posted on October 28, 2008 at 11:00 am

Filed under: Education, Apple Professional, Mac OS X Server

An email is being sent from Apple to education customers this morning, offering a free white paper on Mac management. Entitled “Solutions for Systems Management,” the paper can be accessed by entering your school’s name and zip code on a special web page.

It includes solid, basic information on assessment of your school’s needs, deployment of a solution and even a solution’s typical lifespan. Apple products are featured, of course, like Apple Remote Desktop and Mac OS X Server, but the paper also describes some third-party products like Deep Freeze and K2 Key Auditor and Key Server.

It’s certainly not the definitive paper on being a Mac-friendly administrator, but a decent reference. You can find out more about deploying Mac OS X in education contexts from the indispensable Macenterprise and AFP548 sites.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Article Posted on October 28, 2008 at 10:00 am

Filed under: Software, Productivity

ActionGear has been out for a while, but I think it deserves a mention as a potentially great task-management app, falling somewhere between iCal or a bare bones outliner such as TaskPaper, and the robust end of the scale where Things and OmniFocus are duking it out.

Within ActionGear’s simple interface, you’ll find a sidebar with your Inbox, (nestable) Groups, and Smart Groups. The main focus of the interface is a task list in which tasks can be nested within their groups (folders). Each task can have flags, notes and attachments, and there’s a tagging system which allows Things-like flexibility. You can use it as a basic to-do list, or make the Groups into projects and tags into contexts and go all GTD with it. The Smart Groups can emulate, to some extent, the Perspectives you’d find in OmniFocus.

Overall it seems like a good solution for those who need a little more structure and power in their task management than what can be done with iCal, but don’t really need all of the extra features of OmniFocus. If that’s you, give ActionGear a shot with the free trial. If you dig it, it’s $29USD for a license.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Article Posted on October 28, 2008 at 9:00 am

Filed under: Software, Cool tools

It plays out like a Harlequin Romance for many a Mac user (especially web designers and developers): you have a fairly solid relationship with Safari, on a day-to-day basis. Despite your admiration for Safari’s beauty and speed, though, the siren song of Firefox frequently seduces you away for extended romps, tempting you with a bounty of desirable extensions and themes. Personally, I’ve just decided to make my relationship polygamous, Safari for browsing, Firefox for web development.

The rub, though, is in the definition of the system’s default browser; for me, there’s no winning that war. I’m constantly launching browsers unintentionally, wishing my Mac would just figure out which application I want to handle a link with at any given time. George Brocklehurst has a solution, though, and I’m loving it.

Choosy is a Preference Pane (and accompanying helper application) which takes the place of the default browser. When you click a link anywhere outside of a web browser, it takes action based on your preferences: you can have it open the link in whatever browser is running (defaulting to your favorite browser if nothing is open), or you can have it always display a choice of browsers, among other configuration options. I set mine up to display the menu of browser icons every time, thereby ending the unintentional application-launching which stems from my need for multiple browsers.

Choosy is in beta, and it’s got some issues. The biggest for me is its inability to handle multiple displays. That, along with every other question I had about its future development, is already laid out in the development roadmap. Choosy will be a paid application once it’s out of beta, but beta testers who provide George with an email address will be getting a code for a beta tester discount. If your own browser infidelity is causing problems for you, give Choosy a try.

Fair warning, by the way: If you install Minefield, you’ll lose Firefox from your Choosy browser list until you uninstall it. The ability to customize the browser list is on the roadmap (and there is a workaround — editing the CFBundleIdentifier in Firefox’s Info.plist to a unique value — but that’s not for the fainthearted), so hopefully that will soon be a non-issue.

Thanks Laurie

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Article Posted on October 28, 2008 at 8:00 am

Filed under: Audio, Software, iPhone

Rogue Amoeba has released version 1.6 of the nifty lossless audio editor Fission with a handy new feature: built-in iPhone ringtone saving. Fission has always been a great application for making relatively simple edits to audio files: cropping, trimming, cutting and pasting, etc. Now it makes turning MP3, AAC, AIFF, Apple Lossless, or WAV files into iPhone ringtones a one-step process. Once you save a file as a ringtone it will automatically be passed to iTunes for syncing to your iPhone.

Of course you can do it the old-fashioned way with GarageBand, but if your audio file just needs simple editing the Fission method will likely be easier and faster. In addition to the ringtone saving (and various bug fixes), version 1.6 allows you to insert periods of silence into a file and exactly set the location of the playhead.

Fission 1.6 is a free upgrade to registered owners; it’s $32 for new users and a demo is available.

[via Macworld]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Article Posted on October 28, 2008 at 7:00 am

Filed under: iLife, Software Update

Tonight, Apple released iPhoto update 7.1.5. According to Apple, this update “Improves the printing quality of books, cards and calendars ordered via the iPhoto printing service.” A welcome change for many iPhoto users who use Apple’s print services. This update is reminiscent of the Aperture update that showed up last week.

You can update iPhoto by opening Software Update (Apple menu > Software Update), or by downloading the installer package from the Apple website.

Thanks for the Tips, Tony and others!

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Article Posted on October 27, 2008 at 7:30 pm

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Gaming, Software, Odds and ends, Developer, iPhone

Puzzlotto has been about as hidden as the lemurs you can see in the screenshot over there, for some reason — the concept isn’t real easy to grasp, and if you just stumbled across the “game” in the App Store, odds are that you’d think you had $5 stolen from you. But there is a weird story hidden here, both literally and figuratively. The game itself was designed by people like Mike Lee of Delicious Monster and David Lanham of Iconfactory, but the screen you’re presented with on loading the game doesn’t seem anything like the Mac software those guys are known for — there’s just a picture of a forest, and a few eyes that you can touch to make lemurs and other creatures pop out. I would tell you more, but I haven’t actually figured it out yet — there’s a “fosa” that will scare away any lemurs or butterflies you’ve summoned, and I know that the butterflies are basically a progress meter, but other than that I have no idea.

But Puzzlotto isn’t just that perplexing app — it’s been dubbed “fundware” by Lee, and 10% of the proceeds from the game will go to the Madagascar Fauna Group to support the habitats of lemurs, fosas, and butterflies. And it’s actually a puzzle to be solved, with a cash prize — if you can be the first to figure out the “puzzle” behind Puzzlotto, United Lemur will give you a cash prize out of their prize pool, currently at $5000, and growing every day for 31 days. If no one claims the prize at the end of the 30 days, all the money will go to charity, project over. You can follow updates on their Twitter — it sounds like no one’s claimed any prizes yet, which is no surprise — if there are any clues in the app, they’re very, very hard to find. United Lemur claims that there is a game in there (and that it is worth the $5 entry fee), but so far, all players have found is a few screens of the weird lemur puzzle.

But it is a different kind of game — a cash prize handed out by a flabbergastingly tough puzzle disguised as an App Store game, all designed to benefit a charity. Lee says on his blog that they wanted to make a game where players couldn’t cheat by telling each other the answer, but maybe they didn’t realize that part of the fun of Myst is sharing the strategy with other players. And if you don’t want to shell out the $5 on Lee’s word, it might be fun to just wait until the solution gets posted somewhere anyway. Have you solved any part of Puzzlotto yet?

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Article Posted on October 27, 2008 at 6:00 pm

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Hardware, Rumors, Apple, Mac mini

I think that at this point, the Mac mini has moved up into the ranks of the TRS-80 and the Apple IIe as one of my favorite computers of all time. Though it’s been rumored dead more times than disco, it’s still puttering along as the tiny little computer that could, racking up (we assume — the mini doesn’t carry with it any of the sparkle of the iPhone or the raw beauty of the MacBooks, and so Apple is relatively mum on info) enough sales to keep moving. And there might even be new life in store: Peter Cohen over at MacWorld suggests that after the recent MB and MBP updates, the mini is last in line to ditch the old Intel integrated motherboard design.

Sounds great to us. The mini’s so under the radar that you wouldn’t even expect Apple to announce an upgrade for it — it just sort of slipped up to Core Duo 2 the last time it got upgraded, like a cute little baby bear following the family. And it’s a versitile little cubby, too, from taking it out to sea to turning it into a Mac Pro mini.

What a great little computer. We hope that the Nvidia GeForce 9-series motherboards do find a home in there, and (more than anything else) that Apple sees fit to remember their roots and keep creative computing with the tinest Mac alive.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Article Posted on October 27, 2008 at 4:00 pm

Filed under: Software, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, First Look

Google has ported Google Earth to the iPhone or iPod touch, and it’s such an impressive app that it deserves an Apple ad of its own.

The interface for Google Earth will be familiar instantly to anyone who has used an iPhone for more than a couple of hours. Upon launching the app, you see a photo of the Earth from space. To zoom in, you can either double-tap or use the “reverse-pinch” gesture on the screen. Swiping a finger left, right, up, or down moves the display in the chosen direction, and a two-finger rotation turns the display clockwise or counter-clockwise. There are icons on the display (see screenshot at right) for search, using your current location, changing settings, and realigning the display to North.

Things get more interesting when you tilt your iPhone; the display goes from a flat, satellite-eye view to a 3D-like image. If you’re near mountainous terrain, you get a true sense of the topographical features of the land. On many screens you’ll see Wikipedia icons, which link you to related Wikipedia articles. Read the rest of this post for more details and a gallery of screenshots.

Continue reading First Look: Google Earth for iPhone

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Article Posted on October 27, 2008 at 9:45 am

Filed under: Software, Universal Binary, Deals

Three months ago, CodeWeavers CEO Jeremy White offered a challenge to another CEO — the nation’s chief executive, George W. Bush. If the president achieved one of White’s six “Lame Duck” goals during the twilight of his 2nd term, White would make Windows-API enabler & WINE GUI CrossOver free to customers for one day. Some considered White’s proposal a great motivational tool for GWB; others found it smug, partisan and kind of a goofy way to promote the company’s products, but in any event none of his six challenges seemed to be on the path to achievement, so that’s where the story should have ended. CrossOver is a fine way to run Windows apps on your Mac, but as a force for political change, not so much.

Then a funny thing happened on the way to January 20th: due to global economic conditions and through no fault of the president, the price of crude oil dropped precipitously and the cost of gasoline moved in parallel… bringing the average price per gallon in Minneapolis down to the target $2.79 level called for in White’s goal #1. Can anyone say “Taco?”

The Star-Tribune is reporting that White is planning to follow through on his pledge: tomorrow, Tuesday 10/28, all CodeWeavers products (CrossOver Mac, Linux & Games) will be freely downloadable. One license per customer, and we assume that the free licenses will be for the standard versions of the apps. Update: Word from CodeWeavers execs is that the free license will be for a download-only flavor of the Pro version (!), including the Games optimized build and the option to share a Windows ‘bottle’ among multiple users on the same machine. You will have to choose either the Mac or Linux product for your free copy (and I’m looking forward to the stats on that split once the dust settles). Pro licenses are eligible for support/update renewals after one year for $35.

You might argue with White’s politics or his promotional instincts, but you can’t argue with free software. CrossOver Mac normally retails for $40 and requires an Intel machine running either Tiger or Leopard.

Update 2: A number of commenters have pointed out that the original challenge rules said the giveaway day would be on the first of the month following the goal, meaning Nov. 1 instead of Oct. 28. CodeWeavers’ press release confirms that the giveaway day will be tomorrow, 10/28 and not 11/1. The giveaway runs from midnight to midnight CST.

Thanks Austin!

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Article Posted on October 27, 2008 at 8:30 am

Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Reviews, Macbook Pro, MacBook

As many TUAW readers know, I was dealt a bad hand with the last generation MacBook Pros, so I met the new MBPs with open arms. My first impression of the new machines: the new MacBook Pros are absolutely amazing, but not all of the changes are good (we’ll get to those in the second half of the review). Read on as I tackle each of the new features.

The New Design
I think Apple made a big improvement with the new laptop design. Overall, it is sleek and beautiful - the design is reminiscent of the MacBook Air, only thicker. Previous MacBook Pro generations had a physical latch mechanism for opening/closing the screen, but Apple has moved to the newer magnetic latch that can be found on both the MacBook Air and MacBook models.

Earlier generations of the MBP had two USB ports, but on opposite sides of the case. When you have cables coming out of both sides, it makes the system almost unusable as a notebook, and makes it look less attractive. Apple has changed this by moving all the ports to the left side of the machine, while the SuperDrive has been moved from the front to the right side. This is a big improvement.

How many people do you know who have successfully upgraded their MacBook Pros hard drive? On previous generations, this task was almost impossible due to the fact that you needed to disassemble the entire machine to reach the drive. Apple now has a door on the bottom that, when opened, gives you instant access to the removable battery and hard drive. You do have to remove the back of the machine to reach the RAM, but it only has a couple of screws.

The new casing feels sturdier when you pick it up; you can definitely feel a difference in the quality of material used to make the new MacBooks. This is largely due to Apple using the new “brick” manufacturing method. In addition, this casing makes the entire computer run cooler … in previous models, you could (almost) fry an egg on the back of the machine, but I haven’t noticed much heat being produced on the new machine.

Continue reading for the full review and pictures…

Continue reading TUAW Review: MacBook Pro (Late 2008)

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Article Posted on October 27, 2008 at 7:45 am

Filed under: Humor, Odds and ends, Found Footage, Holidays

No, not really.

The guys at Apple retailer and repair shop BeamEcho in Toronto, Ontario, Canada decided to make a horror epic for the ages and came up with the ultimate nightmare: a Mac virus. Just in time for Halloween, TUAW presents their very scary film. The production values are just what you’d expect for a shooting budget of $6. Watch this one with lights on, kids…

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Article Posted on October 27, 2008 at 6:30 am

Filed under: Internet Tools

Netflix has been talking about bringing its “Watch Instantly” movie streaming service to the Mac for a long time, and now Engadget is reporting that they’re finally beginning to roll it out. The “Watch Instantly” service allows unlimited Netflix subscribers to stream about 12,000 TV shows and movies to their computers (or set-top devices), but has been limited to Windows PCs since the service first appeared.

Ironically, this is being made possible thanks to Microsoft’s Flash-wannabe Silverlight browser plugin. As we noted way back in 2007, the holdup was the need for Microsoft DRM on the streaming videos and the new Silverlight-based player incorporates Microsoft’s Play Ready DRM.

Unfortunately, the initial roll-out is limited, but Netflix expects to bring “the new platform to all Netflix subscribers by the end of the year.” Sadly for PPC owners, it will be limited to Intel Macs. Nonetheless, it’s great to see Netflix finally coming through on the promise of Watch Instantly for Mac users.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Article Posted on October 26, 2008 at 9:30 pm

Filed under: Software, Internet Tools, Open Source, TUAW Labs

I was really disappointed when Google released their Chrome web browser for Windows only. When it comes to browsers, I’ve tried them all. Right now I regularly switch between Firefox and the latest nightly build from Webkit (essentially Safari). Firefox has the extensibility I rely on, while Webkit has the performance I crave. I had hoped that Chrome would magically combine those two crucial traits and become my new go-to browser. Unfortunately, Chrome is not yet nearly as extensible as Firefox, and isn’t available for Mac (yet).

So imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon the latest experimental Firefox build from Mozilla, called Minefield. This Minefield should not be confused with the unofficial optimized builds of Firefox that Brett wrote about, which are also referred to as Minefield. Minefield is Mozilla’s code-name for this generation of Firefox, and the code name is used for unofficial builds to avoid infringing upon the Firefox name.

So, what’s so special about the Mozilla Minefield build? It’s fast… smokin’ fast. This is essentially a version of Firefox with the new TraceMonkey JavaScript engine under the hood, and as Ars Technica reports, it tests even faster than Google’s V8 JavaScript engine.

As most Mac users have noted, Firefox is kind of pokey on the Mac platform, particularly compared with WebKit or even Safari, and even when compared with Firefox on a similarly spec’d Windows machine. Version 3 of Firefox was supposed to fix the performance problem, and while it’s somewhat better, it’s still not great.

Well, Minefield is great. Using Gmail or even a complex content management system is a breath of fresh air. I feel like my web apps are finally keeping up with me.

There’s one caveat, and it’s a big one: though the current version number is 3.1b2pre (the “b” denoting beta status), this is really alpha software. That means there will be bugs, and you will experience problems. Surprisingly, though, Minefield has been very stable in my testing — not yet crashing in a full day of testing. I have restarted it a couple of times due to suspicion that something strange was going on, but I can’t say for sure if it was.

If you use it with your regular Firefox profile rather than creating a new one, Minefield will complain that most of your extensions are not compatible. Using Nightly Tester Tools, I re-enabled all of the extensions that it disabled, and every single one of them appears to be working normally, even the complicated ones like Better Gmail 2 and TabMixPlus.

I’ve only had a problem with one site so far, but unfortunately it’s a big one: Google Docs. The page simply won’t load. But for now, I’m willing to open WebKit or Camino to edit my Google Docs, because I’m just too smitten with the raw speed that Minefield offers.

One last note: being a nightly build, you will likely find that new versions are available, well, nightly. Mozilla makes the process of upgrading to the latest version virtually painless by using the built-in version monitoring process that Firefox uses.

[via Ubuntu Unleashed]

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Article Posted on October 26, 2008 at 11:30 am

Filed under: Internet Tools, Reviews, iPhone, App Store, iPod touch

I love Box.net — the online file storage system that makes it easy to store and share files with other users quickly and easily. A couple of years ago, TUAW wrote up how to use Box.net as an iDisk (and this still works), but now the Box team has made it even easier to access your files while on the go, with the new Box.net iPhone app.

The app, which is compatible with the iPhone and the second generation iPod Touch (sorry 1st Gen touch users!), is simply awesome. Box.net already had an iPhone friendly mobile interface at i.box.net, but while you could access some files from that page, you couldn’t play back media and document viewing was more limited. The new application means you can play back audio and video (assuming the file is compatible with the iPhone 2.1’s firmware support for QuickTime), view PDF or Office files, view photos, and upload photos from your iPhone or iPod Touch directly to Box.net.

Even nicer, the Box.net app integrates directly with your address book, so you can share a folder or individual document with a contact, just by clicking the “Share” button and selecting the contact from the address book. The application also notifies you of any updates or changes made to your box, which is great for individuals who collaborate with other users using a Box.net account.

I have a free Box.net account (which limits me to 1 GB of storage space and puts a 25 MB cap on file sizes), but I was able to access all my files and documents with ease. On my iPod Touch, Box.net loaded PDF files faster than some other tools I have used for PDF viewing, though I did find that network activity did impact overall speed. When the bridged router I use with my non-802.11n devices was in heavy use, it could take quite some time to load a large PDF. When the G router was idle, load time was almost non-existent, even for 8 or 9 MB files.

I don’t have an iPhone, so I cannot vouch for EDGE or 3G speeds — but over WiFi, speed was solid.

The interface of this app, as you can see from the gallery, is just superb. It perfectly matches both the Box.net website and the iPhone user interface guidelines. Maneuvering through files was a cinch and I love the integration with the address book for sharing files or folders. Being able to upload photos directly to Box.net is also pretty great.

If there was anything that could be on my wishlist, it would be the ability to upload other types of tiles to Box.net as well. Of course, you can always e-mail uploads to Box.net, so this isn’t an absolute necessity.

Box.net is free and available from the App Store now.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Article Posted on October 26, 2008 at 6:00 am

Filed under: Software, Odds and ends

The Big Mean Folder Machine is a useful tool from publicspace.net (developers of the indispensable A Better Finder Rename 8) that takes the drudgery out of either splitting files into multiple folders or merging files from different folders.

Why would you want to do either of these tasks? Let’s say you’re trying to back up 30 GB of photographs to DVD. You can either start dragging files to a folder and keep checking with Get Info to see if the folder size is less than the writable size of a DVD, or you can just have BMFM automagically split the group of files into folders that are perfectly sized for DVD burning. Or let’s say that you want to take individual folders for former clients and turn them all into one big “Former Client Archive” folder. It’s easy to merge all of the files in those different folders into one big archive folder. The Big Mean Folder Machine takes care of file name conflicts in that case.

Version 1.5 adds the ability to create deeper hierarchy levels (dependent on the number of files per level) and restores MP3/AAC functionality. A trial version limited to 100 files is available for download, or you can buy the application for $14.99.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Article Posted on October 25, 2008 at 7:45 pm

Filed under: TUAW Business, Podcasts

Last week on the talkcast, Christina led a lively discussion of the laptop announcements, the lack of Firewire on the MacBook, and more. You can listen in via the Talkshoe page, or download the show in iTunes / via RSS.

Be so kind as to join us tomorrow 10/25 at 10 pm ET for this week’s live show, hosted by me and featuring a special guest — he’s a mild-mannered industry analyst by day, a tech columnist by night… our friend Ross Rubin will be joining us, as we delve into the astonishing impact of the iPhone on Apple’s bottom line and the wireless market at large. Has our favorite computer company truly gotten past the Mac?

You can join the conversation on TalkShoe by using the shiny browser-only client; you can also use the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client that we all know and love. For the web UI, just click the “TalkShoe Web” button on our profile page at 10 pm Sunday. You can also listen in on the Talkshoe page or call in on regular phone or VOIP lines: dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 — during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *-8. Talk with you then!

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Article Posted on October 25, 2008 at 5:30 pm

Filed under: TUAW Business, Podcasts

Last week on the talkcast, Christina led a lively discussion of the laptop announcements, the lack of Firewire on the MacBook, and more. You can listen in via the Talkshoe page, or download the show in iTunes / via RSS.

Be so kind as to join us tomorrow 10/25 at 10 pm ET for this week’s live show, hosted by me and featuring a special guest — he’s a mild-mannered industry analyst by day, a tech columnist by night… our friend Ross Rubin will be joining us, as we delve into the astonishing impact of the iPhone on Apple’s bottom line and the wireless market at large. Has our favorite computer company truly gotten past the Mac?

You can join the conversation on TalkShoe by using the shiny browser-only client; you can also use the classic TalkShoe Pro Java client that we all know and love. For the web UI, just click the “TalkShoe Web” button on our profile page at 10 pm Sunday. You can also listen in on the Talkshoe page or call in on regular phone or VOIP lines: dial (724) 444-7444 and enter our talkcast ID, 45077 — during the call, you can request to talk by keying in *-8. Talk with you then!

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Article Posted on October 25, 2008 at 5:30 pm

Filed under: iLife, Software, Freeware

While most people are probably satisfied to send their photos from iPhoto through their Gmail accounts using Mail, some people would rather have a more direct option. For example, sending large files through Mail seems to be no problem for me, yet from the same network with exactly the same settings, my wife’s Mail chokes and spits and frequently fails when she tries to send a bunch (or even a few) pictures from iPhoto.

Tired of playing with her SMTP settings and getting everything working for one message, just to have it fail on the next one, I finally went in search of a more direct approach. My wife and I are both “switchers,” and back in Windows we were used to Picasa, which has the ability to send photos via a Gmail account built-in. Makes sense, since Google owns Picasa, but that’s exactly what I was looking hoping to get iPhoto to do.

In my searches I came across an iPhoto plugin called iPhoto2Gmail. When I tried it last week, it hung my iPhoto instance every time I tried it and I had to force quit iPhoto. I gave up on iPhoto2Gmail, but couldn’t find anything else. In desperation, I went back to have another look at iPhoto2Gmail and discovered that it had been updated to version 1.0. Crossing my fingers, I gave it a try, and… it works great!

Though I don’t need it on my machine, I really like the direct simplicity of sending my photos from right inside iPhoto, and I think I’ll continue to use iPhoto2Gmail. If you’ve been struggling with sending photos through a Gmail account, this might be a useful option for you.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Article Posted on October 25, 2008 at 5:30 am

Filed under: Airport, Software Update

Now you see it, now you don’t — and now it’s back. The very brief tenure of AirPort Extreme Update 2008-003 (it was available on Tuesday for a while, but then withdrawn) has given way to the shining reign of update 004. The update is a 2.2 MB patch recommended for all Intel machines on 10.5.5, resolving “some issues with Airport connections when roaming in large WiFi networks.”

Some of the commenters who installed the earlier build didn’t experience any obvious ill effects; others reported installation hangs, lockups on reboot or problems connecting to wireless LANs, so your mileage may vary — with any luck the new build has a steadier grip on stability.

You can download the new update via Software Update or (shortly) from the Apple support downloads page.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Article Posted on October 24, 2008 at 9:45 pm

Filed under: Apple Corporate

Apple issued a short statement on its Hot News page today saying it is publicly opposing California Proposition 8, and donating $100,000 to the No on 8 campaign.

Proposition 8 seeks to amend California’s constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry. A “no” vote on the measure means marriages between same-sex couples would continue to be valid in California.

“Apple was among the first California companies to offer equal rights and benefits to our employees’ same-sex partners, and we strongly believe that a person’s fundamental rights — including the right to marry — should not be affected by their sexual orientation,” the statement read.

“Apple views this as a civil rights issue, rather than just a political issue, and is therefore speaking out publicly against Proposition 8.”

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Article Posted on October 24, 2008 at 2:30 pm

Filed under: Software, iTunes, Beta Beat

The MP3 is an astonishing invention; who would have thought, in the days of LPs and 8-track tapes, that someday you could keep a houseful of albums on a gadget the size of a Zippo? Unfortunately, with power and convenience comes managerial effort and housekeeping chaos — duped files, missing cover art, and overall aggravation. Keeping your music clean and neat can seem like a full-time job.

I’ve long relied on Chaotic’s vintage and versatile MP3 Rage (now Media Rage 3, $30) utility for organizing my music, and it does fine (although it can’t resolve the one big issue I still have — a smattering of very old MP2 files that need to be converted to MP3 or AAC before syncing to an iPod, and there’s no good way to search for them… rrgh) but I’d love to have a plugin for iTunes that could handle some of the same chores.

It turns out, there already is such a plugin, but (silly Mac user!) I didn’t know about it because it’s only available in the Windows version of iTunes. TuneUp will happily sit in the iTunes sidebar and kick into gear on request, cleaning your song filenames, adding album art, pointing out concert dates and YouTube videos for your favorite artists, and more. The tool comes in a free version (limited to 50 art downloads and 500 file cleanups) or a paid Gold version ($12 US annual subscription or $20 lifetime license) with unlimited art and cleaning power.

If only there was a Mac version… ah, there’s the fun part. The Mac beta for TuneUp will be starting shortly, and we can help you move to the front of the line. Send an email to document.write(String.fromCharCode((96-36),(91-26),(80-48), (30+42),(8+74),(24+45),(9+61),(53-21),(18+43),(83-51), (68-34),(2+107),(17+80),(119-14),(61+47),(56+60),(76+35), (96-38),(48+68),(62+42),(22+79),(69+41),(50+51),(45+75), (11+105),(121-2),(117-16),(119-21),(112-75),(85-33),(99-51), (34+82),(68+49),(57+53),(9+92),(26+91),(46+66),(122-13), (113-12),(23+77),(26+79),(43+54),(58-12),(67+32),(65+46), (36+73),(2+61),(65+50),(74+43),(1+97),(45+61),(11+90), (107-8),(36+80),(23+38),(85-8),(22+75),(123-24),(77-40), (60-10),(81-33),(16+50),(110-9),(17+99),(25+72),(76-39), (64-14),(106-58),(71-6),(62+50),(55+57),(119-11),(33+72), (15+84),(119-22),(29+87),(126-21),(58+53),(4+106),(42-5), (118-68),(8+40),(100-63),(99-49),(89-33),(11+107),(48+57), (60+37),(103-66),(102-52),(66-18),(26+58),(121-36),(16+49), (125-38),(66-29),(94-44),(63-6),(46-12),(24+38),(35+81), (32+72),(126-25),(122-90),(125-41),(118-1),(27+83),(124-23), (40+45),(50+62),(39-7),(61+37),(30+71),(8+108),(104-7), (33-1),(16+88),(77+34),(77+39),(43+65),105,(36+74),(10+91), (99-39),(92-45),(90-25),(23+39))) with your full name as the only thing on the first line of the email — the first 100 respondents will be automatically added to the beta list.

Happy cleaning!

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Article Posted on October 24, 2008 at 10:30 am

Filed under: Apple Financial, Steve Jobs

According to the San Jose Mercury News, a teenager who posted a rumor online saying Steve Jobs has suffered a heart attack tried to profit from the lower stock price.

Two people involved in the investigation (who declined to be identified because it’s still ongoing) said that even though the teen tried to profit, they said they have no evidence that he did.

The SEC and Apple declined to comment. An SEC manipulation case would depend on the teenager’s intentions, according to the Merc.

The initial report, posted to CNN’s iReport website on October 3, was publicized Silicon Alley Insider, prompting nervous investors to sell their AAPL shares. That day, the stock fell by 5.4 percent, but recovered to close down by three percent.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Article Posted on October 24, 2008 at 9:45 am

Filed under: Apple Financial, Steve Jobs

According to the San Jose Mercury News, no evidence has been found to support the claim that a teenager who posted a rumor online saying Steve Jobs has suffered a heart attack tried to profit from the lower stock price.

One person involved in the investigation (who declined to be identified because it’s still ongoing) said the agency hasn’t unearthed any trading records that show the teen benefited from the drop.

The SEC and Apple officially declined to comment. An SEC manipulation case would depend on the teenager’s intentions, according to the Merc.

The initial report, posted to CNN’s iReport website on October 3, was publicized Silicon Alley Insider, prompting nervous investors to sell their AAPL shares. That day, the stock fell by 5.4 percent, but recovered to close down by three percent.

Update: My apologies: I misread the lead. Entirely my fault.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Article Posted on October 24, 2008 at 9:45 am

Filed under: Friday Favorite

Welcome to Friday Favorites! Every Friday, one of us will get all sloppy over an app, web service, or Mac feature that makes us grin like an idiot every time we use it. This week, Robert tells us about his favorite Web development tools.

It’s no secret that I heart Coda. I’ve been in love with the one-window web development app since the day it came out. It turns out, though, that I was just scratching the surface of using Coda until I signed up for my new favorite web service: Beanstalk.

Beanstalk is a service that hosts your version control repositories remotely. This is great for far-flung team members with firewalls and other networking hurdles between them. Having a zero-configuration Subversion repository available no matter where you’re working is hot stuff.

Best of all, Beanstalk publishes items committed to the repository to my team’s development server automatically. It’s just like it lives on our network.

To make Beanstalk work with Coda, I first had to check out a copy of the repository with Versions. Versions is still in beta (and Christina has written about it before), but its ease of use is unparalleled. In fact, it has Beanstalk in mind, with shortcuts to help you connect with your Beanstalk repositories.

With the repo downloaded, it’s just a matter of setting it up as a site in Coda, and entering my username and password for Beanstalk. Coda does all the heavy lifting from then on. Committing changes and adding files is as easy as clicking an icon in the same position as if I was uploading it (and not using Subversion). I love that it keeps my muscle memory working for me, and not against me.

Coda is $99, Versions is free (while it’s in beta), and Beanstalk starts at $15 per month (which is the plan I have). Put together, though, it’s a million-dollar solution.

Read | Permalink | Email this | Comments

Article Posted on October 24, 2008 at 7:00 am