Tuesday, January 15, 2008

The Apple Blog (14 сообщений)

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The Apple Blog, 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.
http://theappleblog.com
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  • MacBook Air: The World's Thinnest Notebook

    MacBook Air

    The rumors were true. Today Apple released the MacBook Air, “The World’s Thinnest Notebook”.

    The competition specs in the “thin notebook” world are around 3 pounds, 1 inch thick, miniature keyboards, and slow processors.

    The new MacBook Air is 0.16″ to 0.76″ at its thickest part and has a 13.3″ widescreen display.

    A few features:

    • LED backlit display
    • Built-in iSight
    • Ambient light sensor for keyboard
    • Multi-touch trackpad - Move a window by double-tap and move. Rotate a photo by pivoting your index finger around your thumb
    • 80GB drive as standard, 64GB SSD as an option
    • 1.6 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo as standard, 1.8 GHz as an upgrade
    • 45w MagSafe
    • 1 USB 2.0 port
    • Micro-DVI
    • 802.11n and Bluetooth 2.1/EDR
    • 5 hour battery life
    • 2GB memory as standard

    The processor on this thing is unreal. Intel shrunk the Core 2 Duo by 60%. It’s the thickness of a nickel and the width of a dime.

    Something worth noting here is that the MacBook Air does not have an optical drive. Jobs says we’re moving towards an age of not needing one. You can get movies via iTunes purchase or rental, use Time Capsule for backups, and install things from CD/DVD via their new “Remote Disc” feature that lets you “borrow” the drive from a nearby machine.

    Base price for the MacBook Air is $1799. They are taking pre-orders today and it will be shipping in two weeks.





  • AppleTV - Take 2

    Today Apple released it’s second version of it’s AppleTV product.

    To go along with the new iTunes movie rental service, Apple’s new version of the AppleTV has had a nice update.

    A quick feature rundown:

    • No computer required
    • Rent movies directly from the AppleTV (HD movies for $3.99; $4.99 for new releases)
    • DVD quality and HD quality + Dolby 5.1
    • Buy music directly from AppleTV
    • Browse podcasts (audio and video)
    • Browse photos from Flickr and .Mac
    • Sync with iTunes
    • Preview movies and see what other users have rented
    • Run photo screensavers pulled from .Mac web galleries

    There has also been minor price drop from $299 to $229.

    All of these features will be available as a free software update in about 2 weeks. Good news is that you don’t need to purchase a new AppleTV to get all of the new stuff!


    Комментарии к сообщению:
    http://theappleblog.com/2008/01/15/appletv-take-2/#comments



  • iTunes Movie Rentals Available Today

    The much rumored iTunes Movie Rental service is indeed becoming a reality…today!

    Today Steve Jobs announced that every major studio is on board: Touchstone, Miramax, MGM, Lionsgate, Newline, Fox, WB, Disney, Paramount, Universal, and Sony.

    Initially there will be over 1000 movies and in general movie rentals will be available 30 days after DVD release.

    It will cost $2.99 for “library titles” (movies that are not new releases) and $3.99 for new releases. HD rentals will be $3.99 for library titles and $4.99 for new releases (only 100 titles available today in HD). You will have 30 days to start watching the movie after purchase and 24 hours to finish it once you have started.

    Movies can be viewed on Mac or PC as well as on all current iPods and the iPhone. Movies will be streaming…meaning you don’t have to wait and download the full movie…you can begin watching instantly.

    Available today in the US. Available internationally later this year.





  • iPhone Software Updates Today

    Today during the Macworld 2008 keynote, Jobs announced quite a few new pieces of software for the iPhone.

    • Maps with wi-fi locations
    • Webclips - Lets you bookmark pages (and their zoom/pan state) and save them to your main screen
    • Customizable home screen
    • SMS to multiple people
    • Lyrics support (for iPod mode)

    These software updates will be available today as a free upgrade.





  • First release of the day: Time Capsule

    Macworld 2008’s keynote is currently underway and the first new product out of the gates is Time Capsule.

    Time Capsule seems to be Apple’s answer to wirelessly backing up your data with Time Machine. Time Capsule is an Airport Extreme base station with a “server grade” internal hard drive. It looks pretty much identical to the Airport Extreme Apple currently offers.

    There will be 2 versions available: 500 GB version at $299 and 1 TB at $499.





  • Apple Store Down, New Products Inevitable

    Apple Store Down

    The “sticky note of good things to come” is now up at the Apple store.

    Generally Apple puts this image up in the hours preceding major product additions. Doing so gives them time to make product page additions and adjustments. It also generally marks the beginning of unrelenting Apple fanboyism and speculation on what exactly they could be adding to their store.

    Patience young grasshoppers.





  • Macworld 2008 Keynote Today

    Today marks one of the most anticipated days of every year. At 9AM CST, Steve Jobs will give his annual Macworld keynote where he’ll talk about Apple’s accomplishments for the past year as well as plans for the upcoming year. But more importantly, he’ll be announcing new products.

    Macworld is an event that causes more speculation than probably any other even Apple participates in.

    The two biggest rumors revolve around the possibility that Apple will begin offering movie rentals via iTunes and the possibility of a new ultra-thin MacBook.

    The movie rental rumor is probably one of the only rumors in the past years that seems almost a shoe-in for happening. Many major film studios have reportedly confirmed their involvement with Apple on a rental service and on top of that…it just makes sense.

    The ultra-thing MacBook rumor, however, is a bit more speculation. Supposedly this ultra-thin laptop will supposedly be almost completely cable-free (supported by Apple’s “There’s something in the air. banner).

    I’m just not so sure Apple would release something like this. I do think Apple could release something like a 12″ MacBook (a size that’s currently missing from their lineup), but just releasing a thinner version something in their lineup just doesn’t add up for me. I don’t think the average consumer is really ready for something that “doesn’t use any cables”. The idea just feels a bit too gimmicky to me.

    What do you think Apple’s “There’s something in the air.” banner means?





  • Live Chat The Stevenote

    While we here at The Apple Blog will be offering our 2 cents (not that you asked…) on tomorrow’s announcements during and following the Macworld Expo Keynote, you may be looking for the straight dirt as it drops. Well whether you’re at a computer, or sporting your iPhone (ok, or any other mobile with a browser) you’ll probably want to check out WebChattr’s coverage from the floor. Our boy Chris Holland has some cool mojo going on to bring the details to the masses in a format that will allow near instant updates in a web-based chat application - WebChattr!

    Check out his page explaining the whole thing here. It sounds like an interesting solution, and more interactive than the typical, ’stare at a blog waiting for it to update every 60 seconds’. Happy Stevenote Eve everyone!





  • There's something in the air…

    There

    Today, Apple updated their home page with the graphic above showing what appears to be Apple’s main slogan for Macworld 2008.

    Many readers are predicting that “air” is the name of a new line of MacBooks from Apple that will be released tomorrow. Other’s are guessing it has something to do with wireless networking or WiFi. I’m guessing no one really has a clue.

    Tomorrow at 9am PST, Steve Jobs will deliver his infamous keynote speech and is sure to release and announce things that will make your head explode.

    Tune in tomorrow for commentary and updates on new announcements related to all things Macworld.





  • Creator of Lost & Alias is a Certified Apple Fanboy

    heart_productimage3.jpg I was getting my weekly dose of TED Talks when I saw J.J. Abrams as a speaker. If you haven't ever heard of TED Talks, Abrams' is a great one to start with. His antics are hilarious and it results in a strong presence on-stage.

    In his talk, he discusses the element of mystery behind his shows as well as the impact of the digital age on filmmaking. The real takeaway from his talk is (mind you, I'm paraphrasing) "He loves him some Apple." My favorite quote from him: "This Powerbook challenges me. What are you going to write worthy of me?"

    This complete, self-proclaimed Apple fan watches Stevenotes and uses his Powerbook on stage. For the record, he was just as surprised as the rest of us to see Lost behind Steve Jobs when they announced TV Shows on iTunes.

    Apple 'Heart' image from Insanely Great Tees.





  • Community Activity: January 14, 2008





  • Hidden Gems In Leopard: OpenSnoop

    I have a confession to make: I have not always been a Mac person. For the period of time between the retirement of System 9 and Panther (yes, it took Apple showing a real commitment to Unix for me to give them a shot again), I abandoned our fine operating system for greener pastures, well, green screen at least. Work drove me into Windows (as it has for about 90% of the workers out there) but my real outlet was anything Linux, BSD or Solaris-related. There was nary a distro that did not cross my hard drive (virtual or otherwise) and I was very happy programming, scripting and living life on the command line, with an occasional, lingering trip into X11 when necessary.

    OS X changed all that, since Apple managed to make Unix look very good while keeping all of the real power that lies beneath the GUI.Now, one may be able to argue the aesthetics of  Leopard (hey, Panic should be happy, it took Leopard to finally drive me into purchasing CandyBar), but none can dispute the gems that await those who dare to invoke the Terminal, and I’ll be taking the opportunity over some of the coming posts to dwell on the nuggets that bear a deeper look. For those that are not as comfortable with the more textual side of their systems, I’ll be making these trips as painless as possible (you may not need to delve into the Utilities folder to find the Terminal icon at all).

    The first stop is a little utility called opensnoop. Leopard ships with something called DTrace that gives developers and administrators the ability to take a peek at what all running code is doing in a flexible and dynamic way. Giving DTrace the coverage it deserves is beyond a simple blog post, but there are some smaller utilities - like opensnoop - that take advantage of the power of DTrace, but on a more targeted scale which are worthy of a minor exposition.The main purpose of the opensnoop utility is to provide a report of file opens as they occur. Curious as to what really happens when Safari opens a web page? Want to see what files are accessed from that latest program you downloaded? You can find the answers with opensnoop.

    If you can get to a terminal prompt, the simplest way to see what this utility does is to just type:

    sudo opensnoop 

    Non-Terminal folks can just run the OpenSnoop.app application from the OpenSnoop App Archive (354KB ZIP file). (Either way, you’ll be asked to enter your password since opensnoop requires higher-level privileges to run.)

    Output will look something like the following, though your listing contents should be very different:

     UID    PID COMM            FD PATH  501    286 SystemUIServer  17 /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Spaces.menu/Contents/Resources/SpacesBackground.pdf 501    218 Finder          11 /.vol/234881026/571978 501    286 SystemUIServer  17 /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Spaces.menu/Contents/Resources/SpacesBackground.pdf 501    286 SystemUIServer  17 /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Spaces.menu/Contents/Resources/SpacesBackground.pdf 0      110 WindowServer     4 /var/log/windowserver.log  0      110 WindowServer     4 /var/log/windowserver.log  501    286 SystemUIServer  17 /System/Library/CoreServices/Menu Extras/Spaces.menu/Contents/Resources/SpacesBackground.pdf

    For each line:

    • UID is the numerical ID of the owner of program that has the file opened.
    • PID is the process ID of the program that has the file open
    • COMM is the actual name of the process (this is something we care about)
    • FD is the numerical file descriptor (ID) of the file being accessed
    • PATH is the full OS X path to the file being accessed (this is also something we care about)

    The sample output is what occurred when I switched to/from Spaces 1 & 3. Just that simple case shows how interesting opensnoop can be since we see that the SystemUIServer and WindowServer were both invoked when I worked just a little bit with Spaces and that SpacesBackground.pdf was loaded from one of the Spaces app bundles.

    While this is useful in-and-of itself, we can use opensnoop for more targeted and detailed inspection. The following command:

    sudo opensnoop -avgn Safari

    (Non-Terminal users can run the SnoopSafari.app from the archive)

    Produces the following output when I tell it to go to google.com:

     TIME           STRTIME                UID    PID  FD ERR PATH                 ARGS 8071248908     2008 Jan 10 21:33:13   501   1153  17   0 /Users/bob/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari/Cache.db-journal Safari\0 8071249029     2008 Jan 10 21:33:13   501   1153  18   0 /Users/bob/Library/Caches/com.apple.Safari Safari\0 8071249636     2008 Jan 10 21:33:13   501   1153  24   0 /var/tmp/etilqs_rjFUOz2TEh7AaoG Safari\0 8075981916     2008 Jan 10 21:33:18   501   1153  18   0 /Users/bob/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari/History/.tracked filenames.plist Safari\0 8075982865     2008 Jan 10 21:33:18   501   1153  18   0 /Users/bob/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari/History/http:%2F%2Fgoogle.com%2F.webhistory Safari\0 8075983663     2008 Jan 10 21:33:18   501   1153  18   0 /Users/bob/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari/History/http:%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F.webhistory Safari\0 8075984521     2008 Jan 10 21:33:18   501   1153  18   0 /Users/bob/Library/Caches/Metadata/Safari/History/.tracked filenames.plist Safari\0 8075980917     2008 Jan 10 21:33:18   501   1153  18   0 /.vol/234881026/713654 Safari\0 8077969298     2008 Jan 10 21:33:19   501   1153  18   0 /Users/bob/Library/Safari/.dat0481.441 Safari\0 8077966383     2008 Jan 10 21:33:19   501   1153  18   0 /Users/bob/Library/Safari/.dat0481.440 Safari\0 8080982146     2008 Jan 10 21:33:23   501   1153  18   0 /Users/bob/Library/Safari/lock/.dat0481.442 Safari\0 8080983115     2008 Jan 10 21:33:23   501   1153  18   0 /Users/bob/Library/Safari/lock/details.plist Safari\0 8081191826     2008 Jan 10 21:33:23   501   1153  18   0 /Users/bob/Library/Safari/lock/details.plist Safari\0 8081192743     2008 Jan 10 21:33:23   501   1153  18   0 /Users/bob/Library/Safari/lock Safari\0 8081193635     2008 Jan 10 21:33:23   501   1153  18   0 /Users/bob/Library/Safari/.de0481.443 Safari\0

    The extra fields are the Unix-coded time, the translated timestamp, the error code (if any) and the file being accessed. This is a more verbose listing, but we will not see any file data from application other than Safari. You can substitute “Adium” or “Finder”, etc for “Safari” on the command line and I’ve included SnoopAdium.app, SnoopFinder.app and SnoopFirefox.app within the archive.

    Hopefully, you are beginning to see the power of this small utility.While there are many options for you to explore within opensnoop, one of the more interesting ones is the “-x” flag, which only displays the failed opens (I’ve included SnoopFailed.app in the archive as well). It’s always good to peek at what applications are looking for but cannot find, especially if you are having trouble with your system or a particular application.I’m working on a more generic GUI front-end to opensnoop and will let you know when I have something worth sharing.

    These apps were all built with the extremely useful Platypus tool (which is in my developer folder once again post-Leopard install). If there’s a particular “snoop” app you’d like me to whip up, drop a note in the comments and I’ll do my best to crank’em out (I’ll post the other apps either on my .Mac iDisk or my personal site).





  • Safari losing your cookies?

    Safari

    Since upgrading to Leopard (and thus upgrading to the newest version of Safari), I’ve had the unfortunate problem of Safari throwing all my cookies right out the window.

    Every 4-6 weeks I’d fire up Safari only to realize that all logins to various sites were lost, making me either go through each site’s password-retrieval system or try to dig through Wallet to try and find it.

    The bug doesn’t seem to have a real “fix” but there is something you can do to solve the problem easily each time it happens (assuming you use Time Machine).

    1. If you’re currently running Safari, be sure to quit before proceeding.
    2. In Finder, navigate to ~/Library/Cookies. There will most likely only be one file in the folder, which is named Cookies.plist.
    3. With that Finder window open, launch Time Machine and go “back in time” to the last time you used Safari and had functioning cookies. Select the Cookies.plist file and Restore it.
    4. Once the file has been restored, relaunch Safari and your previous, working set of cookies should now be functional.

    Each time this happens, be sure to submit the bug to Apple by going to the Safari menu and clicking on “Report Bugs to Apple…”. They read them and the more people send in about bugs, the sooner those bugs will get fixed.





  • Monitor ARP Traffic on OS X with ArpSpyX

    ArpSpyX has just been updated to version 1.2 which adds full support for Intel Macs. If you’re not familiar with ArpSpyX you should give this utility at least a quick look if you care at all about the security or contents of your local network.

    The program works by either monitoring ARP (Address Resolution Protocol) traffic or issuing ARP queries. Where DNS maps names to IP addresses (e.g. test.example.com has IP 192.168.1.10), ARP maps IP addresses to the vendor-assigned MAC address of the actual device (so, in the below example, 192.168.1.47 maps to 00:1B:63:D9:CE:09).

    ArpSpyX Active Window

    Why is ArpSpyX useful? Well, with it you can:

    • Actively or passively collect all the MAC & IP addresses of the devices on your network (with the ability to export this data)
    • Quickly identify new clients on any network you’re connected to
    • See if you are falling prey to ARP Poisoning attacks

    The only real downside is that it requires modifying Unix permissions of your network devices, something Allen Porter (the author of ArpSpyX) has identified as a potential improvement.

    While you’re tinkering with ArpSpyX, you can learn more about ARP via this helpful About.com page, download the source to ArpSpyX via it’s Google Code home or explore vendor MAC address prefix assignments via this helpful search utility.







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