There’s been a lot of interest in running Windows XP natively on the Intel-based Macs. I use Microsoft Windows, Linux (various distros), and Mac OS X every day, 7 days a week for various tasks. Although there is a cost in speed, I prefer a virtualization solution to a dual-boot (requiring reboots to switch) solution. VMware released their GSX product as freeware (Workstation and ESX are still for-fee), XEN is Open Source and free and will be integrated in the next versions of SUSE Linux and Red Hat Enterprise Linux (though it will not support Windows as a Guest OS until the AMD and Intel hardware virtualization CPUs are supported), and the rumor is that Microsoft will drop their already lowered price for Virtual Server 2005 R2 to free (information from Virtualization.info) soon. So, if anyone has a lead on Apple’s virtualization strategy for Mac OS X on the desktop/notebook, let us know what it is.
How much do you know about Apple? The BBC is running a fun little quiz about all things Apple and Mac and Jobs, to celebrate tomorrow’s 30th anniversary of Apple’s founding; go have a play and see how well you can do.
I got 8/10: “You live and breathe Apple, eagerly waiting for the latest shiny gadget to come out of California,” which isn’t exactly the case but, given my profession, is not very surprising.
Meanwhile, Apple itself is spending another day in court in London, defending itself against litigation brought by Apple Corps, The Beatles’ record label. Yesterday, Apple’s lawyer Anthony Grabiner QC told the court: “Data transmission is within our field of use, that’s what the 1991 deal says and it is inescapable.”
Let me show you something I just noticed as I was downloading the latest episode of Lost. This screenshot says it all:
Now how cool is that? You could potentially save more than $10 on the whole season. Unfortunately, I won’t be buying a season pass since it’s cheaper for me to continue purchasing the next 6 episodes or so individually for the rest of this season…but does this marketing pitch give me incentive to buy into other television shows? Yea, to my own detriment, it does — especially since I don’t own a television (on purpose…yes, really. My productivity would go through the floor if I owned one. And besides, I only watch a few select shows, and I can’t stand commercials.)
But take note of one thing: seasons passes are only being marketed on shows that are currently in season, and that approach makes good sense…at least from the supplier’s perspective. Why discount entire seasons of shows that people are willing to pay full price for? Selling in advance always seems to be the way to go, and I bet it’s especially profitable in the digital media market.
And on a related, but different note: I just noticed that they added South Park to iTMS too. And just when I thought I’d broken that bad habit…
So what do you think of the whole season pass idea? (Or the Weight Gainer 2000 episode of South Park?)
Z3Lab’s Philipp von Weitershausen picked up and configured an Intel-based Mac mini to take over to his parents. Before, he did, however, he installed Zope 3 on the mini and ran the Zope test suite on it and a Powerbook G4. The end result: The Python-based Zope 3 runs about twice as fast on a Mac mini compared to a Powerbook G4.
In recent times, I’ve had to ban my kids from using iPods with headphones because they play with the volume controls and blast their ears. Expensive headphones with volume limiters didn’t work because they quickly figured out how to adjust the volume control on the headphones. For the last few months, I’ve had them use an external speaker (Radio-Shack 277-1008C) but it wasn’t only awkward, it used batteries and was only a make-shift solution.
Enter today’s 1.1.1 software update for the nano and 5G iPods. In the Settings, you’ll find a new Volume Limit option. It lets you set the maximum playback volume for your iPod, regardless of how the kids adjust the scroll wheel.
What’s more you can “lock” it with a custom combination so your tech-savvy kids can’t bypass it easily. (They’d have to restore the iPod to get past the lock).
Step-by-step instructions here.
Thank you, Apple!
Thirty years ago this weekend, when Apple began life as a business, it was Steve Jobs who chose a name for the brand-new company. He named it Apple, the same name used by The Beatles’ record company.
Steve probably didn’t think that would ever be a problem. After all, a British music business and a (then very new, very small) Californian computer company - no-one would have expected the two to have any conflict.
But Apple Computer did better than anyone expected, and was soon a global brand. The executives in charge of Apple Corps started to take notice.
And that’s why the two companies came to a trademark agreement in 1991. Apple Corps said Apple Computer could continue using the Apple name, on one condition - that it never go into the music business.
Ooops.
Owen Linzmayer doesn’t like the way Login Items cannot be temporarily disabled or skipped in OS X; either you load all of the ones you have set up in the Accounts Prefs, or hold down shift during login and don’t load any of them. This can be troublesome if you’re out on the road and don’t want to load up all the stuff needed to operate peripherals that aren’t connected.
Well, Owen has a point there, but as soon as I read his complaint a simple solution popped into my head.
With the news that OpenBSD, which maintains and develops OpenSSH, is struggling with financial problems, it has become clear that Free Software needs more than just the support of users and developers. Free Software needs the financial contribution of corporations such as Apple that use Free Software and software licensed under the GPL.
Do you like these weekly iTMS freebie lists? Are they useful? Let me know in the comments.
iChat. Tabs. Cool. (via Digg)
My earlier blog Stream Music over WiFi from your Home Server to your Sony PSP generated a number of requests for the source code. I finally got around to cleaning up the code to make it a bit more readable and move the configuration settings to a separate file.
Recently, Chuck Goolsbee had an experience with Apple Support that had him steamed. He sums it up thusly:
1996 PowerBook Repair Time & Effort:
* 5 minutes of my time
* 2 days of Apple’s time
2006 PowerBook Repair Time & Effort:
* 4+ hours of my time (largely spent being actively ignored while in close proximity to Apple Store staff)
* 14 days of Apple’s time
The system surely is infuriating for anyone who has a broken mac that needs fixing. Show up to the Genius Bar, even just to drop off a repair, and you’re often looking at a wait of more than an hour, or in some of Chuck’s experience, upwards of 2. Worse, though, is the letter from Sam Crutsinger that he reprints as part of the same entry:
At first I thought it was cute. It was like they were trying to make computer repair seem like a shi-shi experience. Now it’s gotten out of hand. Today the system is so NOT cute that I very nearly made a very loud scene in the middle of the Apple Store about it. The only thing that kept me from going off was the fact that before things reached “absurd,” I’d already put in my name and email address to see when the next available reservation slot was open. If I could have gotten out of there anonymously I would have made a speech to the masses.
Have you had a lousy repair experience at an Apple Store? Tell us about it in the comments.
The single handiest modification I’ve made to my Mac UI lately: moving the Dock to the top of the screen. “Heretic!” I hear you exclaim. Ah, but give me but a moment to explain….
There’s been much celebration around the web, now that Mac OS X is five years old. I wanted to join the celebratory atmosphere, but rather than take you through the history of the OS (which other people have already done, much better than I could, elsewhere), I wanted to take some time to reflect on my personal experiences of OS X.
Now, the thought of using any other OS for my day-to-day work makes me shudder. The occasions when I have to use a Windows machine (usually while working for a client on-site) always leave me reeling at how much hard work Windows is after you’ve got out of the habit of coping with it. But when OS X was first released, things were somewhat different.
Reader Merlyn reminds me after reading my article today on Quartz Composer, you can use Quartz Composer compositions as screen savers. Just place them into ~/Library/Screen Savers and select with the Desktop & Screen Saver preferences pane. You may want to skip the gradient background and just use a simple black background for screen savers. Use a “Clear” patch and set the clear color to black.
John Siracusa has a great little piece up about today’s significance in Apple history. Five years ago today, Mac OS X 10.0 hit shelves and took off running. What a long, strange trip it’s been. I think it’s safe to say we’re all looking forward to what’s ahead. Especially as Apple’s own birthday is a little more than a week away.
Happy birthday, Mac OS X, and many more! Now, let’s see what kind of cool products Apple’s going to announce for its 30th anniversary. What are you hoping to see?
For those who have been lovingly (and longingly) holding onto their old YoYo telephone device from the defunct Big Island Software, Parliant’s offer of a competitive upgrade might just pry it from your hands.
The YoYo was a great telephone interface for the Mac and PC and almost everyone who had one mourns its departure. For quite a while old units would get top dollar on eBay, but those times have passed, based on some recent sales.
I use PhoneValet, and I like its stability and quality, but it is missing some key YoYo features, unfortunately. On the other hand, it is a modern program, is updated frequently, and you can get support for it. Maybe it is time to let go of the past, eh?
Oh, and if you have one of several other telephony system you can get in on the upgrade rebate too.
Recently working on setting up a server, I investigated mod_rewrite to prevent easy hot-linking of a specific element and stumbled on a Safari/Firefox idiosyncrasy. It still has me worried I am nothing but a big dodo, though…
When WebDesktop arrived a couple of year ago I thought it was a cute idea. (I think it was also one of the first apps to take advantage of WebKit in an interesting way.) Now there’s a new version, and it’s still cute, but I’m quickly finding it useful for getting things done.
I use WebDesktop 2.5 to place my Tasks Jr.-based To Do list on the Desktop of my second monitor. This works out very well because you can’t accidentally close the window, which is too easy to do when using a regular web browser for both task management and surfing, and the To Do list remains visible all the time where it can silently nag you. (Or maybe mock you, depending on your perspective.) When you need to mark a task as completed, or add a new item, just Command-Tab to WebDesktop (or click its icon in the Dock) and the WebDesktop window becomes fully interactive. Switch to another app, and the task list is instantly back on your Desktop in full view, but again inactive. The new version of WebDesktop has only been out a short time, but so far this technique is working out very well for me.
OK, now I’ve heard everything. President Bush responded to an audience question (asked by Gayle Taylor at a speech in West Virginia yesterday) on how to get the media to do more reporting about the good news in Iraq.
His response? There’s blogs. There’s Internet. There’s all kinds of ways to communicate… As far as we can tell, this is the first time President Bush has used the “B” word. Pretty good for a guy who doesn’t even use email.
Mac mini Core duo running Microsoft Windows XP
A friend brought over a dual-booting Mac mini Pro Duo with 2GB RAM to show me. An Intel-based Mac running Microsoft Windows XP is not quite the sensation it might have been a couple of weeks ago. But, this was still the first time I saw a Mac mini Core Duo dual booting Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows XP and I have to admit I was impressed at the boot speed for both Mac OS X and Windows XP.
PVR software Myth now works with Macteltoshes: “Application successfully compiles. MythTV menu system displays, communicates with backend, and displays video. HD MPEG2 video can be played on a Core Duo 1.66GHz Mac Mini.”
You may have noticed that a week or so ago, Google announced yet another purchase - that of online word processor Writely. Then it promptly closed the service to new users, which was a bit of a disappointment if you wanted to find out what all the fuss was about.
Luckily for me, I had an existing Writely account, which means I could still log in and enjoy the service. So here’s a guided tour (biased somewhat in favor of Mac users because, well, that’s what I use).
Dropped by Costco on my way home tonight and noticed someone cabling a Mac mini to a shelf. If you want to get a Mac mini classic (G4) bundle, head to Costco. $700 gets you a mini, keyboard/mouse (wireless I think), and 3 year AppleCare.
The French Parliament has voted into law a requirement that online music services must limit DRM restrictions and allow customers some choice.
Under the new law, Apple would be forced to allow iTunes Music Store customers the right to play their songs on devices other than iPods and computers.
Apple’s choice would appear to be either abide by the law, and change its DRM in France; or close the French iTMS.
And that’s not all. The law includes all manner of new regulations for fair use of media, P2P file sharing, and much more. BoingBoing has detailed commentary.
Anyway, French law might be the least of Apple’s worries if Google starts a music store too.
Samsung announced a 1.8″ 32GB flash drive. The rumor is Apple will announce the Intel based iBook (or Macbook amateur :-) sometime around April 1 (their 30th anniversary). Although unlikely, it sure would be nice if the new iBook came in at 2 pounds (or less) with the 32GB flash drive and a 12 hour battery life.
A few days back, I offered to explain how I was using sockets to connect to Amazon’s S3 service. A few people expressed interest in the comments and via email. In order to simplify the example (since the S3 service involves a lot of authentication), I decided to start with an iTunes Music Store query. This has the advantage of a very simple header where you just substitute in a search phrase as needed. And of course, you can do it by hand without programming to start with.
More details, how-to, mumbling and source code over at engeek.
I’ve been playing with a MacBook Pro for a few days now (Apple have sent me one on loan for review purposes). So far, there are some things I like about it and some things that I really dislike. I thought I’d share both lists with you now. I’ll produce a more rounded review in a week or two.
Good stuff
Screen The MacBook Pro screen is lovely. Everything’s very bright, sharply defined and there’s no sign of any flaws. In some lighting, I think I can just make out a 1cm-high strip along the bottom that might be a little brighter than everything else, but to be honest my eyes don’t detect it most of the time.
Rosetta, concept and reality I recall people being very dismissive of Rosetta when it was first announced, saying real-time translation would never work, at least not in a productive way. In reality, Rosetta does a superb job of making PowerPC software usable, and its best feature is that it is completely invisible to the user. There’s no “environment” you are forced to work in, no hoops to jump through to get your software running. You just launch apps and they run, as simple as that. Sure, there are some apps that won’t work at all and some that are uncomfortably slow, but Rosetta as a whole is a masterstroke on Apple’s part, and is a key factor in making the architecture switch as smooth as possible.
Universal Binaries Rosetta aside, the surge of Universal Binaries being released by developers is nothing short of amazing. The speed with with which the development community has latched on to Universal Binaries, and with which developers have got them compiled and released, says it all. The majority of the apps I use day-to-day are already UB, if not they soon will be.
So, now you can put Windows XP on your Mac. But - do you really need to?
As our esteemed colleagues at TUAW point out: “it’s about games, plain and simple.”
If you really want to play Windows games on your Mac, I guess there might be some benefit from dual-booting the machine, but you should be aware that there might be hazards to deal with, such as self-cooking computers, not to mention blowing your warranty away.
I think the Joy of Tech strip sums everything up with this cartoon; is the time, effort and sweat involved in getting Windows working on your Mac actually worth it? Will you be able to do anything except celebrate, then wonder what to do next?
For those people for whom a working local version of Windows is vital, there’s always Q, a free Cocoa port of QEMU, the open source x86 emulator. Here’s an excellent how-to for emulator newbies. And if Q doesn’t appeal, hold on tight for future releases of Virtual PC. Running on processors it’s familiar with, Windows under a VPC Universal Binary ought to fly. Maybe even fast enough to play games on.
In OS X Tiger, when a picture file doesn’t have a proper Desktop thumbnail, I rename it. This makes the Finder update the file and add the thumbnail. Then I undo. The picture keeps the thumbnail but reverts to its original name.
If your Aperture library has become larger than what your hard drive can handle, I have two possible solutions. The first is to employ this mobile drive solution in combination with tapping the power of the Projects feature in Aperture.
The second possibility is to try Ben Long’s Aperture Library Spanner that allows you to span an Aperture library across multiple volumes.
Regardless of which method you try, always backup (or vault) your entire Aperture library on an independent drive first. You can’t be too careful with your pictures.
One teeny little thing that bugs me about BBEdit is the way that all new document windows open on the far left of the screen. While BBEdit’s preferences do allow a certain amount of control over the window size, there’s no built-in way to customize its position.
Off I went a-searching, and some digging around in the BBEdit-Talk mailing list archives unearthed the tip I needed.
Maarten Sneep wrote a script that re-sizes all new BBEdit windows to your chosen size and screen position. I like mine to be almost square and very nearly in the center of the screen, so the crucial co-ordinates line in my version reads as:
set bounds of text window 1 to {273, 44, 891, 618}
But as Maarten’s tip points out, you can use the Record function in Script Editor while re-sizing a BBEdit window to your taste, then simply use the co-ordinates that show up in the recorded script.
AOL’s In2TV launched this week. It’s a free classic TV video-on-demand service monetized by in-video advertising. Shows include Wonder Woman, Welcome Back Kotter, F-Troop and La Femme Nikita among others. Unsuprisingly, it does not do Mac. In2TV requires Windows-XP and Windows Media Player 10.
In2TV provides advertisers with compelling video inventory for instream broadband advertising as well as opportunities for sponsorships and accompanying banner ads. Video ads, 15-second and 30-second spots, will be limited to a total of 1-2 minutes within each 30-minute episode as compared to 8 minutes of advertising on broadcast television.
Is it me or does this model sound incredibly backward looking? Why not skip the DRM, skip the 15- and 30-second spots, skip the banner ads and release the shows direct to Bittorrent? Why not use video bugs (translucent on-screen watermarks) to promote the advertisers’ brands? AOL could reach a broader audience, build a greater and more positive brand awareness, and generate a huge amount of goodwill.
AOL would win. Their advertisers would win. The viewer would win. And Mac users would not be left out in the cold. Could someone explain what am I missing here?
Today, the US Patent Office launched a new electronic patent-filing system. Wonder of wonders, it supports, even encourages, Mac OS X use according to Yahoo News. This is a big step forward for the US Government which usually restricts online support to Windows.
“The great news for Apple is that USPTO listened to its customers and integrated Mac OS X and Safari support into its new e-filing system,” Susan Prescott Apple’s vice president of Pro Markets, told Macworld. “Innovators around the world use Macs.”
Hot on the heels of an update to Phlink, the other Mac-based telephone control software releases its next major version. Parliant’s PhoneValet 4 adds several new features including automatic call recording and archive, with a web-interface to your archives for easily location and playback of any call, and other updates, including Universal Binary format.
If you haven’t purchased PhoneValet yet, you’ll be pleased to know that price has now dropped to $170. PhoneValet 3 owners can upgrade for free, earlier versions can be upgraded for $30 per line.
You’ve probably heard about S3. It’s Amazon’s new storage service that debuted just a couple of days ago. Developers can store data of any kind, up to 5GB per chunk, and retrieve it at will. (The 5GB limit is just for a single file. You can store as much data as you want.) The idea is to provide flexible and reliable data storage using the same scalable model already seen with other Amazon Web Services (AWS), such as the Simple Queue Service, Mechanical Turk and Alexa Web Search. Amazon, in short, is building the backbone for a new kind of Web.
Andy Budd has a nice article about smart iTunes playlists that hit Digg this morning. I enjoyed reading it as well as the comments, and thought I’d share.
