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TheAppleBlog
TheAppleBlog, published by and for the day-to-day Apple user, is a prominent source for news, reviews, walkthroughs, and real life application of all Apple products.
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Customizing Your Mac: The Sacred Dock
The Dock has become an iconic feature on the OS X operating system, present from the very earliest versions. It provides a unique way to open applications and monitor what is running on your system, while also offering a space to minimize application windows to.
While I’m sure many of you are quite happy with the default appearance of your Dock, you may be interested to know that there are ways to alter the look and feel of the oft used menu.

This post will explore the different possibilities open to you, outline a variety of relevant websites and applications, along with providing a walkthrough of how to alter the style of your Dock.

Brief history of the Dock

As mentioned above, the Dock has been present since the very early days of OS X. Through the years, it has undergone a few major design changes.

OS X Puma and Cheetah

OS X Tiger and Panther

OS X Leopard

These changes haven’t always been met favorably, particularly the reflections and gloss featured in the new Leopard dock (personally, I’ve never been a major fan). Ars Technica, along with others, have raised interesting critical points.
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Apple Premium In-Ear Headphones Soon to Be in Your Ears
It seems like only yesterday that articles were popping up around the web talking about the unavailability of Apple’s new Premium In-Ear Headphones with Mic and Remote due to the product being redesigned. Wait, it was only yesterday. Well, that was then, and this is now, and the headphones are now available at the Apple Store website, albeit with a shipping time of 7-10 days.

Originally announced at the “Let’s Rock” iPod even in September, and slated for an October ship date, the in-ear headphones are priced at $79. They’re meant to compete with high-end, audiophile-targeted devices from industry leaders like Bose and Shure, but according to some sources, they weren’t achieving that lofty standard, which lead to the extended delay.
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Apple Providing Free DisplayPort Licenses
Ars Technica are reporting that Apple has taken the decision to offer no-fee licenses to companies that develop products utilizing the DisplayPort connection, with the aim of accelerating the port’s ascension to a ‘de facto’ standard. Having recently announced that they will be transitioning their entire hardware lineup to DisplayPort, Apple is firmly backing the new standard.

DisplayPort does have several advantages over older standards such as DVI, based on more open protocols and reducing the need for control circuits built in to displays. It’s easier to use as a plug (not requiring thumbscrews), offers the possibility of connecting multiple monitors and also works well in computers where space is an important factor (the slimline MacBook Air for instance).
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Calaboration Syncs Google Calendars With iCal

Syncing Google Calendar with iCal just got a whole lot easier thanks to a new setup tool released by Google called Calaboration. Calaboration is a Google Code project that allows you to add calendars to iCal with a simple point and click interface, a process that used to take quite a bit more digging.

Before this tool was released, adding a calendar involved copying and pasting the private xml address from your primary calendar to iCal. Adding more than one calendar required you to modify a long URL, adding your email address at the right spot, a step most users were probably not likely to do.

In my tests, new calendar entries from iCal to Google appeared online almost instantly, with iCal syncing the changes as soon as they were made. Updates made from Google were synced down to iCal on the next refresh. The default refresh rate for the calendars is every five minutes, customizable in the iCal preferences under “Accounts.”

One annoyance that I’ve found with the setup is that when clicking on the calendar to create a new event, you must have the calendar that you want the event to be a part of highlighted in the left column. Normally, I’d expect to be able to customize the calendar using the drop down menu in the event creation dialog. A small annoyance, and one that I expect will be fixed in future updates.

Google shows again that they are serious about their Mac development, and make it that much easier to switch to their services. Now… where’s that Chrome for Mac?

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Yazsoft Monster Holiday Giveaway
Yazsoft today announced an extensive Christmas giveaway — their “biggest one yet.” From December 1 to December 24, 2008, everyone has a chance to win 1 of 4 grand packages. No purchase is required to enter, and winners will be drawn randomly during the first week of January 2009. Entering is simple, just email Yazsoft with the subject line ‘Yazsoft Holiday Giveaway.’

Each Grand package will consist of:
- 1 MacBook computer (MB467LL/A: 2.4GHz)
- 1 LED Cinema Display 24 inch
- 1 Apple iPhone (8GB)
It’s a fairly comprehensive set of prizes and, with entering as simple as sending an email, it’s definitely worth a shot. Obviously, the odds of winning depend on the number of eligible entries received. As you’d expect, you can only enter once.
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Ecardlets: Greeting Cards for Your iPhone

If you’re like me, sending holiday cards is one of those “necessary evils” of the holidays. A new service, Ecardlets.com, hopes to make the process a little easier — at least for your friends with iPhones.

Ecardlets.com is a San Francisco, CA startup founded by ex-Microsoft and ex-Googlers, and has just launched its initial public beta of the first-ever ecard platform designed specifically for the iPhone. The unique three-dimensional greeting cards take advantage of the iPhone touch screen by allowing recipients to open and flip the cards with just a flick of the finger.

I tried out the service today by sending myself a few cards. The service couldn’t be any easier to use. Simply design your card and hit “send.” The service sends a text message to your AT&T iPhone recipient which includes a link to your card. Then simply swipe your finger to open the card and read the enclosed message.

There are plenty of stock cards ready to send (there’s even a “Congratulations on your new iPhone” card), but the service will become a lot more interesting as more people begin uploading their own card designs. The site offers a Photoshop (PSD) template that you can download to make your own ecardlet that others can then send. Right now you have to email your designs to ecardlets.com but the site is working on a system to enable user-generated ecardlets.

So spice up your greeting cards this holiday season and send your iPhone-toting friends something different.

Ecardlets.com is, at least for now, completely free to use…so send to your hearts content.

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Joost iPhone App: A Bit Disappointing
Personally, I can’t get enough of the new podcast features rolled out in the iPhone/iPod touch 2.2 firmware update. They’re now an indispensable part of my daily commuting. That’s why I was looking forward to Joost for the iPhone (free). It seemed to have the potential to provide the same kind of time-killing power and more, because of its library of content, which includes popular film and television shows. The app comes with some caveats, however, and it remains to be seen whether those limitations will prevent the app from reaching its full potential.

First strike, although it doesn’t affect users in the U.S., international iPhone owners may be disappointed in the library of available content. Unless you’re a huge fan of Naruto, which seems to make up all of the Anime video section. Many services encounter problems when trying to pick up international distribution rights for all types of media. Pandora is one high profile example, as is Hulu for video. That doesn’t mean there won’t be more content available in future. The Xbox Live Marketplace has brought video to Canada and other markets, albeit behind their American launch.
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Keep Your Mac Clean and Tidy With Sponge
Dare to be Creative has released Sponge, a system cleaning and optimization tool for Mac OS X. The tagline for the product, summing up the aim of Sponge well, is:

You’re running out of disk space? You want to clean your disk to free up some space and get rid of the clutter? Sponge is a tool to keep your Mac clean and tidy.

Features

Sponge combines three different techniques to clean up your Mac: removing applications, locating the large files on your drive and finding duplicates.
- Removing applications: Sponge generates a list of all the applications installed on your system, how much space these applications occupy, and their associated files and folders. Sponge then provides the facility to remove applications safely from the system.
- Sweeping disk hogs: Sponge will show which files and directories take up the most space, giving you a starting point for cleaning some of the clutter from your Mac. Once you’ve tracked them down, Sponge can conveniently swipe them off your disk.
- Finding duplicates: With all the attachments, memos, letters and other documents with which we are flooded in today’s world, it’s easy to lose track and accidentally save duplicates of files. Sponge makes finding these multiple copies easy.
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"Mapple" Lampoons the Cupertino Faithful on The Simpsons
Apple fans found their beloved company satirized Simpsons-style last night. The latest installment of the Fox cartoon featured a “Mapple” store in the beginning of the episode, a tech store where hip, young t-shirted employees take brand loyalty very seriously and display an inordinate amount of devotion to their bespectacled leader. Sound familiar?

The Mapple Store bears an uncanny resemblance to the 5th Avenue Apple Store, with the exception of being in Springfield’s Mall and not New York City. Lisa is amazed at the MyPods, MyPhones, and the Braniac Bar, where smug customer service representatives deal with Comic Book Guy’s complaints about the latest Mapple OS. Homer is intrigued by the dream-fueled, imagination-powered MyCube, whose function isn’t entirely clear, and which glows to show you that it’s not on.
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VMware Fusion Sale: Get It for as Little as $10

Much has been written about VMware in recent months, with the release of Fusion 2.0. The software provides operating system virtualization, allowing you to run your favorite Windows applications and devices on any Intel-based Mac.

Today, until 11:59 PM Pacific Time, the VMware e-store is running a deal for 50% off of VMware Fusion. We recently covered a 25% discount promotion, which pales in comparison to the huge offer today.

To take advantage of the promotion, you need to enter the coupon code "CyberMondayDeal" (without the quotes!), at checkout. The 50% discount is available worldwide, but is a one day only offer — you’ll need to act quickly to take advantage of the deal.

The main two competitors to VMware Fusion are Parallels and Virtual PC, both offering similar functionality. An aggressive push is being made from VMware at present, and for Mac users in the U.S. and Canada, it is interesting to note that this 50% discount can be used in conjunction with a concurrent offer of a $30 rebate for those switching from Parallels or Virtual PC. If you own either of these packages, you’re able to pick up VMware Fusion for a mere $10 (unfortunately, this offer isn’t available for international users).

If you are in the market for a virtualization package, now would be an excellent time to make a purchase. If you’re undecided upon which company to go with, our comparison of VMware Fusion 2 and Parallels Desktop 4 will provide an interesting read.

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Helvetireader Puts a New Face on Google Reader
Jon Hicks from Hicks Design has released the Helvetireader skin for Google Reader. Helvetireader takes a minimalist approach, masking many of Google Readers abilities, creating a simple and very easy to read interface to Google’s excellent RSS feed reader.

Google Reader has been my RSS reader of choice since I made the switch from Bloglines last year. This new skin makes the site seem brand new, and makes it even easier for Reader to stand alone as desktop app with Fluid or Prism. To set up Helvetireader with Fluid, create a new Site Specific Browser for Google Reader, then launch the newly created app. Next, click on the script menu item, and select “New Userscript”. If you have the Developer Tools installed, this will launch Dashcode and allow you to edit the userscript. Just paste in this:
```
// ==UserScript== // @name        Helvetireader // @description Helvetireader style for Google Reader // @include     https://*.google.com/reader/view/* // @include     http://*.google.com/reader/view/* // @include     htt*://*.google.*/reader/view* // @author      Helvetireader by Jon Hicks (http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk) // ==/UserScript==  var cssNode = document.createElement('link'); cssNode.type = 'text/css'; cssNode.rel = 'stylesheet'; cssNode.href = 'http://www.helvetireader.com/css/helvetireader.css'; cssNode.media = 'screen'; cssNode.title = 'dynamicLoadedSheet'; document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(cssNode);
```
Save your script, and relaunch the Fluid Google Reader App. After a second, the CSS from Helvetireader will kick in, and you’ll have a brand new look and feel to Google Reader. The CSS is actually hosted on the helvetireader.com web site, so you won’t have to modify your settings as the code is updated. This script is just as easy to set up on Firefox or Opera, and can be used with Safari or Camino with a little tweaking. Hicks expects this theme to be used by 10 people at the most, I expect it will be much more popular than that.

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MacDeveloper Helps Mac Beta Testers and Developers Connect
It can be tough putting together a good closed beta testing pool if you’re a small developer. Perhaps especially so if you’re developing for Mac, which, despite recent advances, still has a smaller overall user base to draw from than Windows. Sure you can offer incentives, and try to use your own network, friends, and families, but there’s now an easier (if slightly more expensive) way.

MacDeveloper, a recently founded Mac testing community, wants to bring developers together with motivated, responsible beta testers. They do so through their website which allows individual testers to register and become part of a pool, which is made available to developers. Sign up is free for individual testers, but developers have to pay a $16.75 to set up what MacDeveloper calls a “Project Channel,” basically a home page and server space to house your development project.

The site is built around a rewards model for beta testers, and has a points system in place whereby you can earn free software or discounts based on your testing contribution. Testers also obviously get early looks at upcoming software, which is always a big incentive for Mac users involved in the development community.

Testers can also earn “Star Ratings” by becoming a “Quality Tester” through positive developer feedback, which grants even more benefits. If they wish, developers can limit their search to Quality Testers, in order to help ensure that those working on their product are interested and engaged.

As of this writing, MacDeveloper currently has a beta pool of 442 testers, though only 10 project channels are currently active. 88 developers have signed up. If you have a project you’d like tested, it might be a good idea to get in now, since there seems to be an imbalance on the side of available testers.

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Weekly App Store Roundup: Nov. 29, 2008
This week at The Apple Blog, like a farmer with a gaggle of turkeys in the week before Thanksgiving, we’ve caught the juiciest news and posted it here for your consumption. Early in the week we heard about how a dodgy developer has been paying for fake reviews of his app. The week improved with the arrival of a Quicktime fix for HDCP playback and we even found time to tell you how to browse the net on your iPhone securely.

While our U.S. contingent have been preparing tender turkeys (or veggie equivalents), over in the UK I’ve been taste-testing the latest scrummy additions to the App Store.

This week I’m looking at MobileLinked IM, Project Polaroid, Touchgrind and lo-fi retro freebie Fire Engine.

MobileLinked IM (free)
In terms of iPhone IM clients, everyone seems to have their favourites. I dig Palringo - being able to send voice-messages and photos to my mates while I’m out and about feels like I’m living in McLuhan’s glittering global village. On the other hand, fellow TAB writer Darrell Etherington can’t get enough of Beejive’s sweet features. Choice is a good thing, so it’s wonderful that MobileLinked IM has joined the fray, yet, despite being free, it’s lacking in the features and polish of its older counterparts.
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µTorrent Comes to Mac in Beta Form
If I’m using stuck using Windows for whatever reason, I’m probably using µTorrent. It’s fast, lightweight, and far superior in almost every way to any of the other, more bloated Windows clients. That said, I still prefer Transmission overall, and that’s what I use on my Mac machines. I love them both, for similar reasons, but luckily I’ve never had to choose between the two, since they weren’t available on the same platform. Until now. µTorrent Mac Beta has been released and is shattering my carefully divided reality.

I had to fight a little reluctance, and remove my Transmission icon from my dock so it wouldn’t see my betrayal, but I managed to download and install the new beta. I have to admit, µTorrent’s icon is very appealing. Score one for the newcomer. It also opened very quickly, revealing a minimal, Mac-friendly, attractive user interface. So this is what temptation feels like.

With the proper ports forwarded in my firewall, and running one after the other, not simultaneously, I found download speeds to be roughly the same in both applications on my test file, a (legally) free audio book of Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer. Both feature individual file prioritization, speed limits, peer information, and ratio monitoring and automatic stopping of seeding at customizable ratios. After I performed my brief test, I had to ask myself: would µTorrent unseat Transmission as my go-to torrent client?

There are a few reasons why it won’t. First, I really like Transmission’s automatic resizing of the application window to fit active torrents. It may be a minor feature, but I’m nuts for it. Can’t go back. Second, the Transmission icon can be badged with upload and download rate, while µTorrent’s cannot. That at-a-glance access to rate information saves me a lot of time in obsessive application window switching. Finally, Transmission supports remote control, groups, speed limit scheduling, and has an auto-add function for a folder you specify. That’s a lot of “finalies”, I realize, but I don’t want to overdo it with the feature listing. It’s probably the product of having been an actively developed app for far longer than µTorrent has, but Transmission still wins nonetheless. Recent Windows-switchers will have a familiar face to greet them when they cross over though, and that’s always a good thing.

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Secure iPhone Browsing
If you’re a security nut, browsing at a public hotspot can be like showering in a public bathroom. You might have no other option, depending on your circumstances, but you’re bound to feel a little creeped out and you’d probably rather have some flip flops on. Think of Hotspot Shield as flip-flops for your computer. And now for your iPhone, too.

AnchorFree’s Hotspot Shield for computers installs a client on your desktop or notebook that sets up a virtual private network, helping to ensure that you stay anonymous and secure while browsing. Hotspot Shield for iPhone employs the same concept, minus the client, allowing you to browse securely from your mobile device.

I’ve used Hotspot Shield with my MacBook before, and found little cause for complaint. There are some hiccups when streaming large media, and an ad is displayed at the top of your window, though Hotspot Shield itself is free.
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Mac of All Trades II: Return of the Mac
It’s time for some more alchemy involving your beloved laptop or desktop companion. Just like last time, we’ll look at a few different apps that allow your Mac to perform some unusual tricks. That Apple is far from a one-trick pony, so forget about boring old internet browsing/photo and video editing/word processing. Prepare to add a “daddy” to the end of your Mac, and show all your friends just how cool you are. This batch will really help you “Bond” with your computer.

Saltwater Aquarium

Nothing says “international man/woman of mystery” like a saltwater fish tank. Whether you’re plotting to destroy the world, or just aiming to become a master of seduction, your lair should definitely house Finding Nemo and his buddies. Real aquariums are expensive and hard to maintain, but your Mac has you covered.

I know it has been around for a while, and it might not be the most useful software on the planet, but I still can’t get enough of SereneScreen’s Marine Aquarium. It comes in both pay and free editions, with the free version lacking the fish variety and customizability of the paid-for software. I set it up on my 32-inch LCD TV and let it run while working or entertaining.
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Final Vinyl Makes Sound Routing and Recording Surprisingly Simple
Being a big fan of my Griffin radioSHARK I was disappointed when the developers dismissed all plans on cranking out an HD Radio version of the device. Given the extensive source tagging in the digital stream, they could have integrated both recording to iTunes and purchasing from iTunes with little effort.

Still wanting to experience HD Radio as inexpensively as possible, I recently purchased a Sony XDR-F1HD HD Radio Tuner and, despite owning every cable known to human-kind, I lacked the RCA-male-to-3.5mm-female cable required to directly connect the tuner to my desktop speakers. Not wanting to trudge down to the family room to hook it up to the stereo for testing, I got out my trusty Griffin iMic but did not want to crank up anything as complex as Garage Band just to do listen to the radio. While I could have used something like Audacity, that program is overkill for the task I wanted to perform.
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Apple Pushing Green Notebooks in Ad Campaign
With their latest lineup of products, Apple is pushing the new environmental features in an aggressive way. Rightly so, they are proud of their achievement — going from a heavily criticized Mac and iPod lineup a few years ago, to a set of very environmentally friendly products today.

Their environment page states, albeit in a typically corporate way, a commitment to creating ‘green’ gadgets:

Apple recognizes its responsibility as a global citizen and is continually striving to reduce the environmental impact of the work we do and the products we create.

The new U.S. ad campaign was launched on Monday night, and is coupled with a new page on the Apple site providing more environmental information. Not only is it the first TV spot Apple has released heralding environmental progress with their products, but it marks the start of any major campaign for the new MacBook lineup.
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Black Friday for Apple Fans
On Tuesday, Apple sent out emails reminding everyone that the “best shopping event of the year” is coming up in the United States this Friday after Thanksgiving, traditionally referred to as “Black Friday” by retailers.

Past Black Friday deals at the Apple Store have been limited to modest ($50 to $100) discounts on computers. Special pricing should be available in the online store and in retail stores around the U.S.. No word yet on what Apple plans, but we will post an update here as soon as the announcement is made. In the mean time, here are some other sales going on this week for the holiday shopping season.

Best Buy is having a sale on Apple gear through Wednesday, November 26. These deals to get $50 to $150 off a new Mac are available online and in retail stores. You can check the story on AppleInsider to get all the details.

MacMall is also running two sets of promotions — a Thanksgiving Blowout Sale and a 3 Day Black Friday Sale.

If you’re having trouble deciding where to shop, MacRumors has put together a nice chart showing the best discounts on Macs between the two sites.

If you’re shopping for discounts on accessories for your Mac or iPod, check out the great web site, bfads.net for searchable listings and scans of all the major retailers. For example, check out these hard drive, printer, and digital camera deals. Online, newegg.com and Amazon.com are having some great sales too.

If you know of other great deals, please share links in the comments below.

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Aurora Feint II: The Arena Arrives in the App Store
I’m a huge fan of Aurora Feint: The Beginning for the iPhone and iPod touch. It’s just the right blend of nerdy and casual for a mobile platform, and I could spend either hours or just a few minutes with it, depending on my schedule. And I did spend hours, which either proves that Aurora Feint is based on a solid concept, or that there is a certain type of person who will play any game that allows them to gain levels, regardless of how meaningless new levels actually are.

Given my affinity for the original, you’ll understand how excited I was as I downloaded Aurora Feint II: The Arena last Friday. The sequel to the popular puzzle RPG promised asynchronous online multiplayer play, and enhancements to the existing character and leveling system. How could you go wrong by bringing more awesome to an already awesome game? The answer: you can’t.

There are so many additions its hard to know where to start. Let’s start with basic game play. Even in the Mine, arguably the central component of the Aurora Feint world, there are noticeable improvements. The core play that makes the game so addictive is still there, but now animations are smoother, and you receive better, more visually pleasing tutorial tips throughout. Colors are brighter, and special combo animations are completely revamped. At any time during the game, you can press the arrow at the top of the screen to review your progress, go to the main menu, and return to the world map.
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Smartphones and Wi-Fi: Why This Should No Longer Be An Option
I was surprised when I first learned that the Blackberry Storm would not have Wi-Fi. This was especially surprising to me since the other recent new Blackbery, the Bold, does have Wi-Fi.

It seems more and more of the upper-tier smartphones include this feature, and it got me wondering if it should be a feature a potential user should insist on. For me it definitely is.

Keep in mind that if you think Wi-Fi as just a high-speed data pipe, then I believe you're underrating what Wi-Fi can do for your device. Here is why I'd insist on Wi-Fi in what, let's face it, are hand-held computers that happen to make phone calls.
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Nimbuzz: Free Multi-Service Messaging/VoIP Client for the iPhone
I have to admit, I paid 15 bucks for Beejive Messenger for the iPhone and haven’t looked back since. That said, I realize that not everyone has the budget or inclination to spend that much money on a mobile messaging app, nor should you have to. Free clients are also available, and the newest addition to the list is Nimbuzz! That’s not me getting really excited, there’s an exclamation mark in the product name. Not that I’m unfazed by Nimbuzz! either. The app supports all major messaging (text and voice) clients, and VoIP protocols as well, including Skype, so that’s promising.

At first, I mistakenly inferred from the app description that it supports only Wi-Fi connections. Not so. For voice chat and VoIP functions, you must have a Wi-Fi connection, probably to comply with carrier-imposed limitations, but for text chat, 3G and EDGE are fine. Like Palringo, Nimbuzz! requires you to sign up for a master account, but the process is relatively painless. You can do it from within the application, and the only information required is your desired username, password, and a valid email address. Nimbuzz! uses the account to store your saved services, so you can sign in to the PC and web versions with a single login and access all your IM networks.
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Quicktime Update Brings Intermittent HDCP Fixes
Apple has released another update to Quicktime that should be a small bit of good news to unibody MacBook and MacBook Pro owners. Bringing its version number up to 7.5.7, the new Quicktime removes the HDCP playback restrictions from standard definition movies purchased and rented from iTunes. According to the release notes:

This update is recommended for owners of MacBook, MacBook Air, and MacBook Pro with Mini DisplayPort. The update addresses an issue where some standard definition purchases from the iTunes Store do not play on some external displays.

It should be emphasized that this only resolves issues with standard definition versions of purchases. So, if you were having troubles before and are now hoping to watch that download in all its high definition glory, you are still out of luck.

The update is currently only available via Software Update for all Mini DisplayPort equipped systems.

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Sick of Your Dock's Animated Poof? Change It

Most people know that when you want to remove an app from your dock, you simply need to right click it then drag it to the desktop. The first few times it disappeared in a puff of “smoke” you probably thought it was cool but if you’re over it now, it’s possible to change that “poof” to a twirl, fade, or anything else that strikes your fancy.

First, locate the file that contains the animation. Navigate to /System/Library/Core Services. Hold down the control key, then click Dock and choose Show Package Contents. When the Dock window opens, select Contents > Resources.

Locate the file called poof.png and click to open. Gasp in surprise when you find out that it’s really just a five-frame graphic that can easily be replaced with your own file.

Use Photoshop, Seashore, Comic Life, or the image editor of your choice to create a cool new graphic that, like the existing file, measures 640 pixels tall. Then just save the new file and restart your system.

Poof, now you have yourself a new dock animation!

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Handbrake 0.9.3 Brings New Video Sources

The video encoding and transcoding tool, Handbrake has been updated to 0.9.3. This latest release brings a number of substantial changes to this excellent video utility.

The two most fundamental changes make Handbrake more flexible and also more limited. First flexibility — Handbrake will now accept many different video sources and does far more than just DVDs. The second change is that DVD decrypting has been completely decoupled from Handbrake and you’ll need another app to do perform that step in the conversion process. This version has a number of other improvements for Mac, Apple TV, and iPod users. Read the release notes to get a full list of changes.

Video Cornucopia

Just in time to help us deal with our grief at the passing of Techspansion and its seminal video converter, Visual Hub, Handbrake now has the ability to convert all sorts of different source material to H.264 or MPEG4 video. This potentially allows Handbrake to transcode AVI video from digital cameras and other such files. This new flexibility comes as a benefit of incorporating the libavcodec and libavformat libraries from the FFmpeg project. Unfortunately, the AVI file from a Canon P&S camera I used to test this on resulted in great looking video with a bunch of static in the audio track.
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Laptop: The Computer to Have in a Power Blackout
One of the reasons I’m a die-hard laptop aficionado is that I live in a rural area where power blackouts are not uncommon. Late November usually brings at least one with the arrival of the first major winter storm. This year proved no exception, with a major gale roaring in off the Atlantic last Friday evening.

I was prepared, but by the time I went to bed, although the lights had flickered a couple of times, the power was still on, and I was beginning to be a tiny bit optimistic that we would dodge this bullet. No such luck. I woke up around 4 AM, and the wind was screaming. Gusts had been forecast to about 45 MPH, but I would estimate we were getting more like 60 MPH sustained for about half an hour, at which point the lights died. I called the power utility and went back to bed.
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Why Make a Good App When You Can Just Pay People to Say You Did?
While annoying, the tactic of offering your app for free for a limited time prior to making people pay for it at least has the nice benefit of allowing a number of customers to actually get the software without paying for it. App Store manipulation hit a new low, recently when someone went a step further: paying people for high review scores.

Yes, in a frightening new low for Apple’s iPhone software distribution system, Wired is reporting that the developer of Santa Live, a Christmas-themed application aimed at children, seems to have been offering $4 in exchange for every 5-star review posted by people who download the $1.99 app. Since the Santa Live folks would be losing money in the deal, the obvious goal is to fix the ratings to encourage unwitting downloaders to fork over real, non-reimbursed cash.

The offer was listed on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, and has since been taken down. Luckily, a TUAW reader snagged the screenshot above to preserve evidence of the shady move. The Turk listing even describes a sneaky secret code system by which plant reviewers can identify themselves without drawing undue attention, by including an extended, five-period ellipsis (…..) somewhere in their review. Six of the 22 reviews for the app at the time of this writing contain the code.
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Examining the Battery/AC Performance Gap on MacBooks and MacBook Pros
Back in the dark ages, when I used to have a Toshiba laptop, I would always remove the battery when running off of AC power, out of what may have been misguided superstition. I was told, and I fervently believed, that doing so would extend the life of my battery considerably by reducing the total number of cycles. When I got a MacBook, I just stopped the curious practice cold turkey. I didn’t have a reason for it at the time, but it looks like I was right to do so, as users are reporting significant drops in performance on Apple notebooks with the battery removed.

This issue is getting a lot of virtual ink around the blogosphere. Most of the scuttlebutt is actually misleading, too. ZDnet blogs, the Apple Gazette, and TrustedReviews all feature articles that reference the problem as affecting new model MacBooks and MacBook Pros, which is true, but only tells half the story. In fact, the issue is not limited to the aluminum and glass model machines. Gearlog, who ran the tests, doesn’t mention any limit to the models affected, and the Apple Support article officially noting and explaining the issue is actually dated from before the release of the new notebooks, so it must reference previous models as well.
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9 iPhone Apps to Keep You Fit
You may have caught our round-up of iPhone apps for your car from a few weeks ago. Well, it's time for another batch, so here's our our list of 9 fitness-related iPhone apps. Once again, each item on the list links to a full review with feature and pricing information. Enjoy!

Nutrition/Weight/Health Information Apps

Restaurant Nutrition
If you eat a lot of fast food, but you're morbidly curious and you want to know what you're putting in your body, then this is the app for you. I like it because it helps me eat reasonably well when I'm on the road.

LIVESTRONG.COM Calorie Tracker
You probably recognize the Livestrong name from Lance Armstrong's charitable organization that made yellow bracelets omnipresent. Well, now they've given us an app that keeps track of your daily calorie intake/burn.

Weightbot
An adorable robot that keeps track of your weight for you. A great app that's beautifully designed, in addition to being useful, with nice sound effects, graphics, and animations.

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Carbon Copy Cloner Makes Creating Bootable Backups Easy
One of the things I loved about the old Mac OS Classic was that to create a bootable disk, all you had to do was make a folder named System Folder, drag in System and Finder files and an Appearance Folder, then drag your bare-bones System Folder to a disk — hard drive, Zip, floppy, CD-R, etc — and voila! you were in business. Usually one would add a few more items like Control Panels and Extensions folders, Preferences and Fonts folders, but it was a simple, quick and not-too-dirty way to make bootable disks.

Alas, you can’t do that with OS X and its thousands of tiny, usually invisible files, but the next best thing is disk cloning, which is to make a copy of an existing bootable volume on another disk or drive. This is excellent for backups, but has the added advantage of allowing you to create bootable disks without going through the hassle of running an OS X installer program.

There are several software utilities available that can clone drives, but it’s hard to go wrong with Mike Bombich’s Carbon Copy Cloner, which is offered as uncrippled shareware, with donations suggested if you like the software and decide to continue using it once you’ve checked it out.
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Shields Up! Twelve Security Holes Fixed by New iPhone/iPod touch Firmware
Weldon did a phenomenal job covering the visible and functional changes in the iPhone/iPod touch 2.2 firmware release. If you are holding off on the update, or just haven’t gotten to it yet, you may want to pencil in some time with iTunes as there are a twelve security fixes in this firmware release, each of which leaves your device and/or data vulnerable to attack.
- CVE-2008-4228 & CVE-2008-4229 & CVE-2008-4230 – Passcode Lock – iPhone provides the ability to make an emergency call when locked. Currently, an emergency call may be placed to any number. A person with physical access to an iPhone may take advantage of this feature to place arbitrary calls which are charged to the iPhone owner. This update addresses the issue by restricting emergency calls to a limited set of phone numbers. Also, a person with physical access to the device had the ability (under certain circumstances) to launch applications without the passcode and if an SMS message arrived while the emergency call screen was visible, the entire SMS message would have been displayed, even if the “Show SMS Preview” preference was set to “OFF”.
- CVE-2008-2327 & CVE-2008-1586 – ImageIO – Viewing a TIFF image that was crafted to take advantage of poorly coded compression libraries could lead to attackers running any code they choose (i.e. arbitrary code execution) on your system or cause system instability/force a reset (Denial of Serivce/DoS)
- CVE-2008-2321 – CoreGraphics – Very similar to the ImageIO problem, this involves attackers using a specially crafted web site to achieve the same results
- CVE-2008-4227 – Networking – Your PPTP VPN connections may not be as strongly encrypted as they should be
- CVE-2008-4211 – Office Viewer – If you view Excel files on your device, you are susceptible to arbitrary code execution or DoS attacks
- CVE-2008-4231 & CVE-2008-4232 & CVE-2008-4233 – Safari – Nasty HTML TABLES (and, when are HTML TABLES not nasty?) and insidious IFRAMEs lead the list of Safari problems, but a particularly tricky bug regarding phone calls you did not deliberately make is now fixed by Apple properly dismissing Safari’s call approval dialogs when an application is being launched via Safari.
- CVE-2008-3644 – WebKit – Even if you were a good web programmer and disabled autocomplete on “sensitive” form fields, Mobile Safari may still have saved that field data in the browser page cache. Individuals with physical access to the device could pretty easily gain access to that information.
Organizations that allow iPhones to be used for business purposes should do their best to ensure all users are upgraded as soon as possible. Individuals should take note of the reduced security posture prior to the 2.2 firmware and make their own risk-based decisions (but upgrading gets you the cool new Street View, so go ahead and upgrade now!).

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Profile of an iPhone User: Interesting Statistics About Yourself

As a mobile device, the iPhone crosses several different user groups. From business users to media junkies, a wide range of people use the iPhone in a variety of different ways. The App Store is fueling this variation even further on account of the huge array of different applications available.

A few pieces of research have been conducted that give an interesting glimpse into the profile of iPhone users, and the main activities they choose to perform with their device. This post will summarize a few different results and draw some interesting comparisons between the uses of an iPhone compared to other mobile phones.
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How the iPhone Should Have Made the Blackberry Storm Launch Easier

There have been a lot of reviews lately regarding the new Blackberry Storm. I summarized a few myself, but things haven’t improved much. While there are some bright spots, the overall tone of the reviews is that the Storm is a disappointment.

Still, as a Blackberry on the Verizon network I suspect it'll do fine regardless. Instead of dwelling on the reviews, I want to disagree with comments I've read that say RIM should be cut some slack because it's a 1.0 product, which makes it the same as the iPhone's initial release.

No, not at all. RIM had it easy.

From the moment it was announced, while Apple faithful may have believed, most outlets spent time mocking the iPhone. Greasy screen! Fingerprints! Car crashes because you can't drive and text at the same time! Won't be able to dial in bright sunlight! And on and on. Most of them were kind of silly, and a few were downright asinine.

People's memories can be short, so let's go back in time and look at what Apple had to overcome with the iPhone.
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Using Preview's Enhanced Photo Editing Tools

For basic photo editing, if you’re running OS X 10.5 Leopard you don’t need Photoshop Elements or Pixelmator. Leopard’s Preview graphics viewer application is much more than a viewer; it now incorporates some very handy image correction tools that are not only user-friendly and intuitive to use, but also work really well.

Consequently, if you take digital photos or scan transparencies or prints onto your computer and want to optimize them, you may not need a traditional image editor application at all. Preview can do the job for you.
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Boxee is Back On Apple TV 2.3
And there was much rejoicing! I noted in my Apple TV 2.3 article that the latest Apple update broke boxee, but now the official boxee blog explains that they have got it working again. It took a little longer to get the USB Creator updated to work with Apple TV 2.3, but you can find the instructions on the boxee blog to make a patchstick installer that makes the whole process as simple as pulling the cord, plugging in the patchstick that you made, plugging the power back in, waiting, and then rebooting.

Some other things to be aware of…
New remote behavior:
- long “select” switches between now playing and ui
- long “menu” takes you home
- back on login screen takes you out
Known caveat: with the update to 2.3, Apple broke a few things, one being the ability of the app to consistently appear in the foreground. Until this is figured out, if you run boxee, and get a black screen, you need to back out of boxee by clicking menu on the remote, and try launching boxee again.
Apparently Scott and Stephan are working on this last bit to kill the black screen bug dead for good.

I like the new features in Apple TV 2.3, but I missed having access to boxee after I upgraded the other day. I’m was having minor issues with boxee and Hulu. Playback gets just a little bit jittery at times. I’m hoping the upcoming releases will help improve this situation.

Also, as a side note on boxee, the boxee team just released the results of a user survey they conducted to determine which media sources to add to boxee next. You can read all about the results on their blog. Personally, I’d be thrilled if they can deliver half of the sources on their list. Pandora on Apple TV would be amazing.

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