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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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Keep Your World Together With Firefox

About seven months ago I made the decision to sell my Macbook and use only my iMac. I love this decision and I don’t regret it, other than one small issue…portability. This isn’t a huge issue but since I do quite a bit of traveling it does cross my mind once in a while.

Traveling without my iMac isn’t to say I go without a computer. I typically am given a loaner, or have a personal computer I am allowed to use on such trips, which is one of the reasons I decided I didn’t need my Macbook. However there is a catch, the computers I use are typically Windows machines. So how do I make the constant switch between the two machines without my own files, applications, or preferences? One simple application…Firefox.

One of the main issues I have with using a strange laptop is my hindered freedom when it comes to installing and customizing applications. However I was given Firefox to work with, which if used properly can be one of the most versatile and practical applications you can have installed. So how can you make Firefox bend over backwards for you?
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Daily Apple: Gesture Patents, 10.5.6 Danger, Hobo Justice, iPrint, & Brighter Pics
Old Dog, New Tricks Via Multitouch - I remember crudely wrestling with swipe gestures on my various Palm pilots over the years. It wasn’t perfect, but I did appreciate the quick delete function that a backwards stroke of the stylus resulted in. Apple may be working on putting in some similar gesture controls in upcoming firmware updates, or so some recent patent applications would seem to indicate.

10.5.6 Could Break Your Pro - At least one user got the awesome Christmas gift of a broken MacBook Pro this year, courtesy of Apple themselves via the recent 10.5.6 update. Apparently, the update ran his battery to zero, necessitating a restart. Upon restart, the Apple logo would briefly appear, followed by black screen. Eventually, he found a fix, but it wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t fun.

Homeless Sue Apple - Because it’s easier not to care when you’ve got those white earbuds in, this homeless group are suing Apple. Not, obviously, real, but I have to admit I read quite a bit before I caught on. I can’t be blamed, I’m experiencing serious turkey coma.

iPrint for iPhone Prints to HP Printers Wirelessly - I had some fun amazing my relatives with HP iPrint over the holidays this year. My grandmother was getting genuinely freaked out, since I kept surreptitiously snapping photos and then sending them to the main floor printer, located right behind her head. Of course, without a flash, most of those photos were indecipherable, but the ones that turned out definitely impressed.

Xenon Flash for iPhone - Speaking of the iPhone’s lack of camera flash, this case from Snapture can provide yours with a hardware one, good for a thousand uses. It uses Xenon, just like fancy-pants car headlights.

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Fixing Poor Laptop Ergonomics
Got a MacBook for Christmas? I’ve used laptop computers almost exclusively for a dozen years now, and they’ve been great, but for day in, day out, workhorse duty the standard laptop configuration does have serious ergonomic deficiencies.

If you position the computer high enough for comfortable and ergonomically healthy viewing angle to the screen, your wrists will be cranked down in unhealthy ape-hanger mode, stressing soft connective tissues, including the troublesome carpal tunnel where the brachial nerves pass through your wrists to your hands.
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Apple and Microsoft: The Difference in OS Sales Models
In a previous article I discussed Apple's approach to cloning and how far they should go in shutting down that business. This led to the question "why can't I just buy Mac OS X and install it on any hardware I want?", which led to a pretty typical answer that the boxed OS X is sold as an upgrade, not a new (or full) license. This answer is sometimes challenged, and brings up the idea of what an "upgrade" is in the Mac world as opposed to Microsoft.

This is not an Apple vs. Microsoft argument. It simply attempts to outline the difference in each one’s approach to OS sales, and why each uses the sales model it does. Rather than claim one is "right", I believe each is right for the business model it supports.

Where Apple may be handicapped in terms of perception is that Microsoft's approach is well-known and understood. Microsoft could point out that ~95 percent of the planet probably "gets" their model. Apple, for all their recent success — so much so that many Apple fans forget they're still a drop in the Atlantic in terms of global market share — employs a different approach that, when viewed through Microsoft's, might seem a bit strange.
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My Top 5 iPhone Apps of 2008: A War of Attrition
It was a long, drawn out, brutal affair. Finally, after many months, five apps have emerged victorious, and earned a long-term place on my iPhone’s home screen. There are a lot of apps that I’m initially impressed with, and which actually work really well, or have interesting features, but it takes something special for me to actually continue using one beyond an initial honeymoon period. A lot of the apps that meet this criteria end up helping me work, or distract me from work, but in a lasting way.

5 - Last.fm [Free]

This one is sure to provoke cries of “What about Pandora?”, “Pandora FTW”, etc. The sad fact is that Pandora doesn’t work here in Canada. The site now only supports U.S. users, so we’re out of luck. But we still have Last.fm, and despite the fact that some claim its recommendation engine isn’t nearly as effective, it works well enough that I can plug it in and forget it for an entire day of work, and still be guaranteed a short list of artists to look up, too.
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One Juicer: Managing the App Store Beast
There are many ways to keep on top of app releases. You could, for instance, just visit the app store on your iPhone and sort the lists by release date. You could also try AppSniper, an application designed solely with keeping tabs on iPhone releases and pricing. Or, you could go with a web or RSS-based solution, like AppShopper. Personally, I use a mix of all of the above, but I still feel like there’s something missing.
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